COMPUNOTES - Issue #54 - October 6, 1996 This Week's Contents: My Notes: 1) ListServ and More Changes Next Week! 2) The Winner of our CDROM this Issue is . . . Columnists' Corner: 1) None this week! News: 1) Novell Releases Information on IntranetWare! 2) ATT Chooses Microsoft Explorer! Reviews: 1) Product: Bridge Deluxe II with Omar Sharif Reviewed By: Donald A. Hughes 2) Product: Cafe Companion Reviewed By: Doug Reed 3) Delrina CommSuite for Windows 95 Reviewed By: Jerry Eichelberger 4) Product: MetaMorph D (Villa Crespo Software) Reviewed By: Mike Gallo (gallomike@aol.com) Web Sites: 1) Travelling Email Addresses! Interview: 1) None this week! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date : October 6, 1996 |CompuNotes is a weekly publication available Issue: 54 |through email and many fine on-line networks. ------------------------|We cover the IBM computing world with CompuNotes is published |software/hardware reviews, news, hot web B440, |sites, great columns and interviews. We also 1315 Woodgate Drive |give away one software package a week to a St. Louis, MO 63122 |lucky winner for just reading our fine (314) 909-1662 voice |publication! Never dull, sometimes tardy, we (314) 909-1662 fax |are here to bring you the way it is! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Backroom Workers: |We are always looking for Patrick Grote, Managing Editor |people to write us with |honest, constructive Doug Reed, Asst. Editor / Writer Liaison |feedback! We need to hear |from you! Please take the Judy Litt, Graphics Editor/Web Master |time to send us your |opinions, comments and ------------------------------------------|criticisms. Some of our I am looking for a collection of shareware|better features have reviews I put out in the 87-88 timeframe |actually come from our under my handle of NEVER BEFORE. I think |readership! Thanks! they started as NB*.ZIP. Can you look |--------------------------- on your local BBS? THANKS! | Go St. Louis Cardinals! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Every issue of CompuNotes ever published can be found at the following ftp site: ftp://ftp.uu.net:/published/compunotes. 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Our winner is: awax@dpc.com Send them a congratulatory email! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Columnists' Corner - We bring you a different person each week! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- No columnist this week! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NEWS OF THE WEEK| This section is dedicated to verified news . . . All News (C)opyright Respective Owner - Will Only Reprint ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NOVELL AND INTRANETS!| ---------------------- BURLINGAME, Calif. Novell, Inc. today announced IntranetWareT, a new product that continues the evolution of NetWarer, the world's leading network operating system (NOS), into a full-service intranet and Internet access platform for businesses of all sizes. IntranetWare builds on the distributed services found in NetWare 4.11 (code-named Green River) and integrates new intranet and Internet technologies, including a high-performance Web server and browser; a gateway between industry-standard TCP/IP and IPXT/SPX networking protocols; and a multiprotocol router for wide-area network and Internet connections. IntranetWare will ship in the fall of 1996 in the same time frame as the separately available NetWare 4.11. IntranetWare, along with network applications such as Novell's GroupWiseT E-mail and collaboration solution and ManageWiseT network management software, provides businesses with the most scalable, secure and reliable full-service intranet solution. IntranetWare will enable NetWare customers to preserve their existing network investment while evolving their business networks to embrace Internet technology and the benefits of intranets. IntranetWare enables customers to choose how and when they transition their corporate networks to intranets, by allowing them to selectively install those networking components that meet their immediate requirements. IntranetWare is fully compatible with NetWare 4 servers, applications and hardware, enabling users to upgrade their existing networks to networks that embrace Internet technology. Novell will focus on the IntranetWare platform and distributed network services in the future, but continue to sell and provide full support for NetWare 4 and NetWare 3. "With IntranetWare, Novell opens our product line and 55 million customers to the future of networking," said Robert J. Frankenberg, Novell chairman and CEO. "It was only a decade ago that Novell revolutionized networking with NetWare. Now we have again reached one of those watershed points in the development of our industry as customers evolve their networks into intranets based on distributed network services and open standards. Once again, Novell is driving the evolution of networking to give our customers' businesses an enduring competitive edge." "Novell defines a full-service intranet as a corporate network that supports Internet technologies and open standards, while also providing the distributed network services required for mission-critical business," said Steve Markman, executive vice president and general manager for the Novell Products Group. "With IntranetWare, we're giving organizations an intranet platform upon which they can add ManageWise and GroupWise to create full-service intranets that include directory, Web, security, file, print, management and messaging. We believe this evolution of our core technologies will help protect our customers' investments by smoothly migrating them to intranets, and provide new customers with the best price/performance intranet solution." "IntranetWare will help NetWare users extend their existing network infrastructure to the Internet and corporate intranets as they transition from IPX-only network environments," added Lee Doyle, vice president of local area networks and data communications at International Data Corporation, a leading market analysis organization. "As more NetWare customers take advantage of new Internet and intranet resources, they can add capabilities without having to sacrifice their existing investment in network access and management." IntranetWare enables businesses to access and publish information on intranets and the Internet with a high-performance Web server, browser and Web-site authoring tools. These include: Novell's NetWare Web ServerT 2.5, the fastest and most powerful Web server in its class, and the only Web server integrated with Novell Directory ServicesT (NDST) for fast and easy management of intranet- based information and resources; Netscape Navigator, the world's most popular browser for accessing the World Wide Web and HTML-based applications and services, with Web-site authoring tools included. IntranetWare's integrated IP/IPX gateway greatly simplifies the process of deploying an intranet Web server by freeing customers of the need to retrofit their business networks with IP addresses. To access the intranet or Internet, users simply launch the Netscape Navigator browser (or other WinSock 1.1-compliant application) from any desktop workstation and pass network traffic to the server for IPX-to-IP translation. Traditionally, network administrators had to install and maintain a separate IP stack on each desktop to provide NetWare clients with access to IP-based intranet or Internet services. Because IP is only deployed on the IntranetWare server, administrators save time and money by tracking and maintaining only one IP address per group of users. When organizations are ready to move to IP, IntranetWare supports TCP/IP with dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) and BootP to ease IP address management. IntranetWare is a uniquely secure platform that acts as a natural level- one security firewall because only the server has an IP address, rendering IPX-based servers and workstations invisible to potential intruders from the Internet. With IntranetWare, network administrators can leverage both packet-level and user-level control to provide secure Internet access and manage the flow of information. IntranetWare also features the first Internet access solution that supports user- and group-level security tied to NDS, enabling administrators to manage, limit or block connections to specific Internet services and sites. Future enhancements to IntranetWare will feature full firewall and proxy cache capabilities. IntranetWare incorporates wide-area networking capabilities to support a high-speed wide-area network connection to an Internet service provider or a corporate intranet without requiring an external router, enabling companies to minimize their network implementation and management expenses. Its software routing technology provides wide-area networking services over ISDN lines, leased lines, frame relay and even ATM links, enabling organizations to easily upgrade to high-bandwidth technologies and maximize investment in their existing hardware and infrastructure. IntranetWare also provides businesses with server access to AT&T Worldnet Intranet Connect Services and other telecommunications carriers worldwide providing secure, managed wide-area intranet services based on Novell Connect Services (NCS) technology. IntranetWare provides a proven, reliable foundation for running network applications and applications that leverage NDS, including the upcoming GroupWise 5, Novell's messaging and collaboration application; ManageWise 2.1, the end-to-end PC LAN and intranet management solution; and numerous third-party database and management applications. All applications developed to work with NetWare 4 or NDS will automatically run on IntranetWare upon its release this fall. IntranetWare also features the NetBasic scripting engine, a Visual Basic-compatible scripting interpreter that enables developers and administrators familiar with Visual Basic to easily build, manage and deploy advanced intranet applications (including dynamic HTML pages and sites) on IntranetWare. To build and deploy intranet solutions based on IntranetWare, developers will also be able to leverage all of the common World Wide Web services, including Java applets, JavaScript, the Remote Common Gateway Interface (R-CGI), the Local Common Gateway Interface (L-CGI), access controls and logging, and PERL script interpreters. Development partners will also be able to use an upcoming version of the Java Virtual Machine, an execution environment that will enable organizations to run Java applications on IntranetWare. IntranetWare is built on Novell's core file, print, and directory services and preserves all enhancements to the operating system, services and utilities originally planned for NetWare 4.11. These include: Built-in support for symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) for increased scalability and power to run enterprise-wide intranet applications; NetBasic, a Basic scripting tool for access to network services and fast development of intranet applications utilizing NDS; New graphical network administration tools, including NetWare AdministratorT (NWAdminT) to better manage companies' network and NDS environments; C2- level security to protect sensitive data during transmission across networks; Improved network migration and installation utilities; and NLS, a licensing service that allows organizations to track and monitor the use of licensed software across networks. Novell will release IntranetWare in the fall of this year. Pricing is not yet available. For additional information on IntranetWare, customers can call 1-800-NETWARE or visit Novell's World Wide Web site at http://www.novell.com. ---------------------- ATT CHOOSES EXPLORER!| ---------------------- BRIDGEWATER, N.J.-- AT&T and Microsoft today announced that customers ordering AT&T WorldNet(sm) Service and using the Microsoft WindowsT 95 operating system now have a new choice in pre-configured browsers -- the Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0. In addition, those buying new computers will find AT&T WorldNet Service included in Windows 95, along with the browser. AT&T also announced that it has designated the Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 as the default browser for AT&T WorldNet Service. AT&T said that AT&T WorldNet Service software is included in versions of Windows 95 now being delivered to computer manufacturers. The majority of computers with Windows 95 delivered during the holiday season are expected to include AT&T WorldNet Service. Anyone with a computer using Windows 95 with pre-installed AT&T WorldNet Service can reach the service with a single mouse-click, thus avoiding the need to install access software separately. Finding AT&T WorldNet Service within Windows 95 is easy -- it's prominently displayed in the Windows Online Services Folder. A preconfigured version of Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 is available immediately for users of Microsoft Windows 95. Similarly, a preconfigured version of Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 for AT&T WorldNet Service will be offered for Windows 3.1 and Macintoshr users soon after Microsoft releases version 3.0 of the browser for these platforms. Microsoft expects to enter beta testing of the Macintosh and Windows 3.1 versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 shortly. The popular Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 offers users an easy, exciting way to browse the Internet, and provides developers with a technically advanced platform for creating Web sites. Innovative Internet conferencing, collaboration and browser customization makes Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 an excellent browser for users. Users may still request other browsers offered by AT&T, and AT&T WorldNet Service is compatible with all browsers and applications using standard Internet protocols. "An important part of bringing the Internet to everyone is making Internet access easy, convenient and available for as many people as possible," said Tom Evslin, vice president, AT&T WorldNet Service. "Users now will find that everything they need to sign up for AT&T WorldNet Service is pre-loaded on their new computers, along with the Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 browser." AT&T WorldNet Service also can be found on the Microsoft Internet Referral Server, which enables Microsoft customers to choose and subscribe to an Internet service provider. Windows 95 with pre-installed AT&T WorldNet Service will be available in retail outlets later this year. "AT&T WorldNet Service is one of the largest Internet service providers worldwide, and we're excited about making the service available to the millions of people who use Windows," said Brad Chase, vice president, Developer Relations and Marketing, Internet Platform and Tools Division at Microsoft. "Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 has been recognized by the industry as an excellent browser and we believe that the combination of AT&T WorldNet Service and Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 is a great solution for customers." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- REVIEWS OF THE WEEK | Interesting software/hardware you may need . . . ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Product: Bridge Deluxe II with Omar Sharif Reviewed By: Donald A. Hughes (dhughes@wwdc.com) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Interplay's Bridge Deluxe II, with Omar Sharif is an educational, fun, and very patient Bridge tutor. The program is informative and written with a variety of skill levels for the novice, to the tournament Bridge player. The minimum system requirements for playing this instructional game are: "386/25 MHz system with 2 MB of RAM..SVGA graphics board with I MB of RAM on it that is supported by standard VESA drivers (Bridge Deluxe, Interplay Productions, manual page #4)." I tested Bridge Deluxe on two different computers both running Windows 95: a 386Dx 40 MHz, with 8 MB of Ram, and an ATI Mach8 graphics card with 1MB of RAM, SVGA monitor, Sound Blaster Pro card with a 2X CD-ROM drive. The second test computer is a 486DX 100MHz, 8 MB of RAM, ATI WinTurbo graphics card with 2 MB of RAM, SVGA monitor, Sound Blaster AWE32 sound card and 8X CD-ROM drive. Exiting Windows to MS DOS mode, the game played equally well on both computers. However, getting the game to run properly on both computers was to be another challenge. At first the game would not run on the 386 system and displayed this error message: `Error: A Vesa driver is required to run in Super VGA mode-One was not found'. Apparently I had forgotten to load ATI's Vvesa.com utility that supports programs requiring Vesa drivers for SVGA mode. Once the driver was loaded into memory, Bridge Deluxe II worked without increased problems. To simplify loading the program, I created a batch file to first load the Vesa driver, then change to C:\intrplay\bridge directory, and next run Bridge deluxe: Bridge.Bat cls C:\Vvesa.com pause CD\INTRPLAY\BRIDGE BRIDGE The "pause" command is added to visually verify that the vesa driver is loaded, but not necessary if you make this type of batch file. Anyone who wants to run the bridge program on your 386/25 or faster computer, first check your manual for the graphics card installed in your system to see if you can run a driver utility such as Vesa.com. If your 386 graphic card does not have the ability to run a vesa driver, you will have to update your system to run this game. By now most of you are thinking, this problem occurred on the 386 computer, and as the 486 has a VL-bus graphic card the game should run without problems. I first tested the program using a Trident Video VL- bus card with 1 MB of RAM and Bridge Deluxe II worked with-out any difficulty. However, after I replaced the Trident, with the new ATI WinTurbo graphics accelerator card, then exited to MSDOS, loaded Bridge Deluxe, executed the game, all was fine, until I moved the mouse to click on a button. As I moved the mouse its pointer trails erased every thing in its path, which made a mess across the screen. This was one problem totally unexpected, as all had been satisfactory with the Trident Card. Now I knew it was time for the last resort of all computer users, yes, R.T.B (read the book) time. The WinTurbo from ATI has a utility called M64VBE that needed to be loaded before loading Bridge Deluxe. Once the utility was set and loaded all mouse trail problems ended, so I set about learning the finer points of playing the game of Bridge. The software problems I encountered were easy to overcome with a little research, but if you are running a graphics accelerator card such as an ATI, you may come across this type of error. Once you correct the problem using the VESA drivers the game should perform without producing any more problems. Playing Bridge Deluxe II. As the program starts you are greeted by a video clip of Omar Sharif welcoming you to Bridge Deluxe II. The next screen (which is the main screen) presents the user with seven choices: How to play Bridge, Beginner Tutorial, Intermediate Tutorial, Play Bridge Now, Scoring and Bidding Guide, Quit Bridge Deluxe, and Help. Selecting "How to Play Bridge" brings up a video (movie clip) of Omar Sharif, explaining the game of Bridge, the total number of cards, the Major and minor suits, and the descending order from Ace to the lowest card a two. You can replay the tutor by simply clicking on the replay button. At any time Omar Sharif appears on the screen, you can bypass him by pressing the ESC key-this feature also works for the narrator when she explains parts of the tutorial. The novice Bridge player will find the tutorials a wealth of information on playing the game of Bridge, including bidding and scoring conventions. Even the more advanced player will increase their knowledge from review these well-organized tutorials. Some players will want to pass the tutorial and begin playing the game of Bridge. A Simple click on the "Play Bridge Now" button begins the Bridge game. After selecting "Play Bridge Now" at the main menu, the options' windows appear. By default the game is set for one human, playing the south position and the computer playing east, west, and north. From the options screen you can select the players, Human or computer, and their position of play-north, south, east, west. Next you select the type of deal: Random deal is the default, Manually entered, you select the cards in each hand. The Manually entered option allows the user to setup and study particular bridge problems, such as master bridge tournament games. Loaded from disk, this feature allows you to load a saved game from disk. Included on the CD-ROM are ten tutorial hands that can be loaded, and they are recommended for the beginning player. Biased deals, allows playing offensive or defensive in an infinite number of ways, allowing you to practice and vary game play. The network feature allows you to play with one to three others who are on the same network-share.exe must be in your Autoexec.bat file to allow game play on a network system. The right side of the option's menu allows the user to set their bidding system and conventions-Bridge Deluxe II is pre set to the Styman and Blackwood advanced Standard American System. After selecting your choices (or use the defaults) from the option's menu, and click on OK, then game table appears. If you are using a mouse, click on the upper right portion of the screen, or if you are using the keyboard press the ALT key, and the pull down menu appears. Again the user has a variety of things to choose from the four menus: File, Display, Action, Preferences, and help. The File menu: allows the user to, Save, Load a saved hand, Print, Ease a saved hand, and Quit to DOS. The Display menu: allows variances how North, South, East, West, hands are displayed on screen. Other features of the display menu: Hide All, Show All, Review Bidding, Review Play, Display Score, Explain Score. The Action Menu: Claim Tricks, Concede Tricks, Hint, Forwards, Take Back, Set Contract, Abort Hand, Switch Hand, Send Message -network game only. Preference's Menu allows user to alter: Bidding System, Game Speed, Fast Card Entry, Auto Card Play, Auto Explain Score, Novice, Card back, Table Top, Spotlight Animation, Movies, Screen Saver, Speech, Music, Save Prefs, and Default Prefs. The Help Menu: Glossary of terms, Opening Bids-Omar Sharif will help you to make an opening bid, Scoring guide a complete description of bidding and scoring terms. The two companies, Interplay Software and Oxford Software have put together a customizable Bridge game package that will give the novice as well as the advanced players' hours of enjoyment. While the advanced player will want to customize the game to suit their style of play, the beginner will simply want to leave the defaults in place until they reach a better understanding on How to Play Bridge. Playing the Game: I would fit the class of the novice player, whom has a basic understanding of the conventions of playing Bridge. After loading Bridge Deluxe II, I decided to review my knowledge on the game of Bridge and started with the "How to Play Bridge" tutorial. The video clips played smoothly on both the 386 and 486 computers with adequate synchronized sound. After feeling confident that I could make a book in Bridge Deluxe II I moved from the tutorial area to "Play Bridge Now." The Game of Bridge uses 52 cards to make the playing deck, which allows for a possibility of thirteen tricks to be made by either side. The four players are paired together North/South and East/West or two teams of players. If south wins the bidding, North becomes the dummy hand and the hand is played in turn by South. The successful bidding side must make their "Book" to score. A "book" is six tricks, and a contract is a book plus the bid. If south and north bid 1 heart, and won the bidding, the contract is 6 + 1 or seven tricks. When Bridge Deluxe II starts game play, each players' hand is spotlighted in turn to indicate that it is their turn to bid, pass, or play. The spotlighting of each hand is instructive means of learning, and a guide to the proper Bridge playing procedure. After the bidding and passing, the games play starts, and if South (game default) was the successful bidder, he or she becomes the Declarer-member of contracting side who plays out the hand. If north is the Declarer, the you (south) will be presented with the option "Should Dummy Play?" If you decline the option, the computer will play the hands, but, if you elect to play the hands are reversed and you play as the declarer- north's hand. During the game you will hear the voice of Omar Sharif complimenting if you win the trick with "That was good play" or if you forfeited the trick "bad luck." During my first round of Bridge the commentary "bad luck" was starting to get on my nerves, however, this feature can be turned off from the pull down menu. Unfortunately the computer had many a "good play," and succeeded in winning the game-thus back to the tutorials for me. The programmers of Bridge Deluxe II have designed a fast paced, customizable game, that allows the customer to set-up the program to accommodate their specific playing styles. Interplay's Bridge Deluxe II is ideal for those wanting to learn or sharpen their skills, and increase their fun playing contract Bridge. Interplay offers a lifetime warranty on their products and will replace a CD-ROM or disks that fail free of charge, but, the customer must pay for shipping and handling. Contact: Interplay Productions 17922 Fitch Avenue Irvine, California, 92714 http://www.interplay.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Product: Cafe Companion Reviewed By: Doug Reed Requires: Symantec Cafe ---------------------------------------------------------------------- So, you bought Symantec Cafe, loaded it up, played around with the various Java samples, and are now wondering - how the heck does this sucker work? Cafe is Symantec's visual IDE (interactive development environment) for Java, available on both Windows 95 and MacIntosh (previously reviewed by yours truly in Issue 46). At the time, my one criticism of Cafe was that the manual was very thin and the on-line help was adequate - barely - for covering how to use Cafe to create Java applets and applications. Primarily the included manual and on-line help showed you how to create a Java program, but said very little about the rest of Cafe such as the Resource Studio or the debugger. Symantec's IDE environment in Cafe is a carbon copy of their C++ compiler, which is fairly much the same as compilers from other companies. If you used these compilers, well, you'll feel right at home. But if you've never used them, you are as lost as Hansel and Gretel were when they met the witch. Cafe companion is your guide out of the forest. Cafe Companion is basically two books in one; on the one hand, it provides examples and exercises geared towards explaining the various components of Cafe, while on the other hand it provides a very basic tutorial of Java and object-oriented programming. By very basic I mean that it is geared towards those that have never programmed before (or at least not with an object-oriented language) although it does go into a fair amount of detail on the subject of Java programming. The most important parts of this book, however, are the descriptions of how to use Cafe to enhance your programming ability. To me, no part of Cafe is more interesting than the Resource Studio, which allows you to design the graphical user interface for your applet. As mentioned above, however, the documentation that comes with Cafe is woefully inadequate when it comes to explaining how Cafe works and what it does. Cafe Companion repairs this oversight, taking a fairly good look at how the Resource Studio works and how you can use it to design your GUI. A considerable amount of time is also spend explaining the debugger, which can be very helpful when it comes time to decipher errors in your Java code. An entire chapter is devoted to how to use the Hierarchy Editor to see the relationships of the various classes in your program as well as to create new classes or get to the details of classes and interfaces that are contained in the Java class libraries. The Cafe Companion is easy to read and well put together; the chapter subjects flow well from one to the next. The most surprising thing is that no one is listed as the author of this book; instead it appears to have been a team effort by the development team at Symantec that created Cafe. If you read my review in Issue 46, you'll remember that I praised that team for their active and vocal voices on the Usenet newsgroups, as well as their fast, friendly, and efficient customer service. That effort appears again in this book; team efforts can succeed or fail depending on the ability of the team to work together towards a common goal and the team behind Cafe seems to have grasped that completely. The team should also be praised for their efforts in releasing patches and upgrades to Cafe; version 1.5 is already out for Windows and includes support for Netscapes new Open Network Environment (ONE). I heartily recommend Cafe Companion to anyone who has purchased Cafe, is considering purchasing Cafe or even just simply wants to learn how to program in Java. There are other books on learning Java, to be sure, but this book is fair easier for the novice to read and understand than most that are out there (the other I would recommend is Java By Example, published by Que). Some people might argue that Symantec should have included Cafe Companion along with Cafe as the manual; while to some extent I agree, the additional price of Cafe Companion ($29.95) combined with the price of Cafe ($129) is still considerably less than the announced prices of the graphical IDDE's being released later this year by Microsoft, Borland, or even Sun. Symantec 10201 Torre Avenue Cupertino, CA 95014 408-253-9600 http://www.symantec.com Ratings: Installation/Manual: Not applicable User-Friendliness: Gold Medal Quality: Gold Medal User: Beginner ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Product: Delrina CommSuite for Windows 95 Reviewed By: Jerry Eichelberger ---------------------------------------------------------------------- If you are in need of a total communications package for use with Windows 95, then look no farther than Delrina s CommSuite 95. This package totally integrates your communications needs into one family of products. CommSuite allows you to send/receive faxes, transfer files, surf the Internet, and receive voice messages. The program is quick and easy to use. All applications are true 32-bit multitasking, multithreaded and very reliable. The products support OLE 2.0, MAPI, TAPI, Unimodem, Winsock and Plug and Play. CommSuite is composed of several programs. WinFax Pro 7.0 handles the fax end of the communications suite. CyberJack 7.0 allows you to take control of the full power of the Internet. WinComm Pro 7.0 is used to go online to BBS, etc., and Talkworks is the WinFax telephony option for voice mail, remote retrieval and fax-on-demand. CommBar reports the status of all computer communications. Installation of the Delrina CommSuite is easy and took under 10 minutes. The installation shield will pilot you through the installation procedure. You can customize the installation process by selecting only the products you want to install. Once you have completed the installation process, Windows 95 will restart and you will be ready to rock and roll. I found the manuals that accompany the program very reader friendly and well planned out. If you encounter any difficulty with any of the Suite programs, the best bet to resolving the problem is the manual. Between the manuals and the Online Help Guides, I was able to answer my own questions about the operation of the software in a matter of minutes. To send a fax, you will need the WinFax Pro program. I really enjoy using this product. Sending faxes is easy and you can select from hundreds of built-in cover pages that range from business-like to down right hilarious. You can easily attach files to your faxes with the click of a button. The built in Phonebook makes finding the desired recipient a no-brainer. For browsing the Web, CyberJack is navigation dream. CyberJack is a total Internet access package that includes a browser, news groups, IRC, Gopher, Archie, FTP, Finger and Ping. I found CyberJack's features extremely useful. For instance, you can create personal folders (like Entertainment, Home & Leisure, Games, etc.) and add your favorite Internet addresses under specific headings. When you have a couple of hundred favorite links like myself, you will appreciate how easy it is to locate them when you use folders. The WinComm package makes accessing your local BBS a snap. With its built in Zip Manager and Image Manager, uploading and downloading various files and keeping track of them is a snap. There are many protocols available for file transfers, but I stuck with my favorite, Zmodem. I did not have the opportunity to test the Talkworks package yet. I have ordered a voice capable DSVD modem, and am looking forward to trying out this package. Talkworks allows your computer to act like an answering machine, but with many more features. By setting up the Mailbox feature, your computer becomes a capable voice mail system. With the ability to have multiple mailboxes and fax on demand, this program promises to be an extremely valuable office tool. I am very pleased with the performance, features and ease of use of the Delrina CommSuite. I give a rating of Excellent overall to the CommSuite program. Delrina 6320 San Ignacio Avenue San Jose, California 95119-1209 WWW: http://www.cyberjack.com Customer Service: (800) 431-6704 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Product: MetaMorph D (Villa Crespo Software) Reviewed By: Mike Gallo (gallomike@aol.com) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MetaMorph is a graphics utility programs that allows users to create their own morph animations. If you saw the movie Terminator 2, you saw what powerful graphics workstations software can really do. The bad guy could change from one form into another in a smooth fashion. Metamorph isn't quite as sophisticated as the Terminator 2 stuff, but it doesn't do that bad of a job. First off, I'd recommend running this program from a DOS boot disk. I had problems trying to run program straight from windows 95. The program was working fine until it put the animation file together. At that point my system crashed. I ran the program from a boot disk and had no problem. DOS users will also have no problem. Metamorph supports several graphics format including GIF,TGA,PCX, and BMP files. It will work on 320x200 or 640x480 images in 256 color. A convert program is included to help get non-standard sized images into either of the two supported resolutions. To make a morph, you first start by loading in two pictures. You must then create a special matrix by drawing a bunch of lines across your pictures. The matrix helps the program match features of one drawing with the features in another. Otherwise, all you end up with is a simple dissolve of one picture into the other. Morphing heads are a good example. The eyes, mouth, and nose are all unique feature that are captured when constructing the matrix. It's not that hard to do and the program comes with sample pictures and matrices to aid the user. Once you make the matrix, you may have to sit back a while. The program must now process the two pictures and create an animation file. It does this frame by frame. Depending on how many animation frames you selected, the computer can take quite a while to compile your morph. It took about 3 minutes for me to do a 25 frame 320x200 morph. 640x480 pictures will take much longer. 486 users can expect a half hour wait. The program will create a maximum of 25 frames. More frames would have been nice to smooth out the morph even more. Once compiled to a FLI animation file, a quick click brings you to the animation player After loading the animation file, click on play to see your animation. That's it. You can run the player in batch mode, maybe as part of an inexpensive multi-media program, for example a computer could continuously run the batch player and advertise a company product morphing into a 3-D perspective drawing of the company's name. Warping is another feature that can be done on a pictures. After creating a matrix, you can stretch various parts of an image. There is nothing fancy about this function. It's either stretching the image up and down or left and right. You cannot for example warp the image around a 3-D sphere. The CD-ROM came bundled with two other software programs. D Magic is a Windows based program that allows users to create a 3D image from a conventional 2D image. It creates the images by creating a red and blue offset on the picture. Alas, you must use the circa 1950s red and blue glasses to view the image. They're kind of cheesy and I whipped them off before my wife saw me. They were kind of silly. The program was able to make a 3d image from the file I loaded. However there is a print option with this program. I don't have a color printer, but if I did, I would have like to see if the D effect would still work. It might be a neat trick for your kids to make their own D posters! Finally, the CD-ROM also included a game called Riptide. It's a cute submarine 2D scrolling shooter type of game. Nothing big, but would probably keep young ones occupied (for a while anyways) It doesn't have fancy sounds(in fact the sounds came from the PC's speaker). After using so many Windows programs, I find the DOS user interface on Metamorph to be quite slow. The interface itself not difficult to learn, but I didn't find it intuitive either. Overall, I'd say Metamorph's user interface needs an update. Yeah if it was bundled in one of the five foot CD ROM packs, I might say what the hay and pick one up. Villa Crespo Software 1725 McGovern Street Highland Park, IL 60035 (708) 433-0500 Internet: http://www.villacrespo.com/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- WEBSITES OF THE WEEK! | This section is devoted to cool WebSites . . . ----------------------------------------------------------------------- TRAVELLING EMAIL ADDRESSES!| ---------------------------- By now it is a an established fact that most of us have become addicted to the 'net. It has become very much a part of our daily lives. Few of us, now, can think of living without access to the 'net. How good or bad is this situation, however, is a very different topic. The major activity on the 'net (besides surfing) remains that of exchanging email with other netters. Email addresses have become synonymous to personal names - you feel proud of them. People are now coming up with shorter and easy-to-remember email addresses that just 'stick to your mind'. With time, new problems relating to email addresses have popped up. Seeing someone with an email address like joe@cnn.com when you have one similar to john@csee.sun.upenn.edu makes you feel uneasy. Longer email addresses are surely out of order now. Those in developing countries, where the 'net access is restricted to UUCP (or off-line) email only, the email addresses are even longer due to several hops involved in the mail path. One of my friend in Pakistan (Asia) has an email address ziauddin@hydari.khi.sdnpk.undp.org So all of us would certainly like to get rid of long email addresses and have shorter, smarter email addresses which you can 'through out' to a new person without requiring him to write it down in order to remember it. The second problem that all of us face today in this regard is more serious with consequences that range from remaining unaware of a reunion party to loosing a contract worth thousand of bucks! That's when your email address no longer remains valid. This can happen due to a number of reasons. You might have changed your school and hence you no longer have access to your school account. You might have switched your job or, if you access the 'net from the comfort of your home, you might find yourself in the situation if you decide to switch to another Internet Service Provider. In all of the cases above, one of the apparent remedy is to tell every living soul on earth that you are about to change your email address and hence beg all of them not to send email to the old address. No matter how hard you try to tell other about this, you will definitely find many people sending mail to that very old account. For this, you will need to log on to your old account from some other place and check your mailbox for any important message. All this can be quite annoying. And the situation get worse if many people get in this situation simultaneously. All you see is people announcing to other people about their new email addresses. A website on the 'net has came up with a very logical answer to this messy situation. Life-time, short email alias. The idea is fantastic. You sign up with the website (for FREE!), get a short email alias for yourself and then adopt it as your *only* email address. Let others know about it and make them write to you on that address. Now, if at any stage, you happen to switch your ISP, quit your job or finish your school, you will not find yourself in the situation depicted above. Fire up your browser and point to the website, login with your own, secret password, and just change the _forwarding_ address to your new email address. People would continue using your old alias and the mail would land into your new mailbox. The website is called NetForward . The folks at NetForward offer you a choice to choose from different domains that are available. There is poboxes.com, thepentagon.com, deathsdoor.com and a few more domains that one can choose from. You choose a password, which the people at NetForward prefer to call 'your-mothers-maiden- name', for yourself. This ensures that only *you* can change the forwarding address of your alias. Once you choose an alias for yourself, your new email address would be you@poboxes.com or you@deathsdoor.com etc. NetForward asks about your interest areas. You can choose from a long list of categories such as hardware, software, entertainment, news, business etc. The site then asks you if you wish to receive promotional material relating to these categories. If that is OK with you, you can opt for it. It is how the NetForward people keep the service FREE for their users. The mail sent to your 'alias-address' would first reached the NetForward system and from there, it will bounce to your _forwarding_ address. All this happens immediately and there is no store-and-forward system involved (and hence no delays). You'll still need to check _your_ mailbox - not the NetForward's system. You only need to visit the NetForward site either when you set up your alias or when you need to change the forwarding address to a new one. Now, if you decide to go for this service, then you should hurry up. This is because the first John to sign the service might take john@poboxes.com - all the late coming 'John's would have to invent something for themselves because the alias 'john' has been used up. Beside email alias, the NetForward site also provide you with a URL alias. So you no longer need to use the school-dependent or your employer- dependent URL. You can use http://www.netforward.com/poboxes/you as your permanent URL. Later when you update your page and place it somewhere else, all you need would be a visit to NetForward’s website to change the information there. In a nutshell, the service that is being provided by NetForward is a very useful one and it should have been around much earlier. Let's promote the practice of using aliases - after all _all_ is in a name. :) Tariq Mustafa tariq@poboxes.com http://www.netforward.com/poboxes/?tariq ----------------------------------------------------------------------- INTERVIEW WITH ????? | Weekly Interviews with the Movers and Shakers! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- No interview this week! We'll see you next week! --END OF ISSUE--