CompuNotes
Notes from The Cutting Edge of Personal Computing
August 24, 1997
Issue 94

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CONTENTS
My Notes:
1=> Nothing This Issue, mailto:pgrote@i1.net
2=> This Issue's Winner!

Reviews:
3=> Product: MGI Software Corp.'s VideoWave - applications/graphics
Reviewed By Howard Carson, mailto:lrhc@interlog.com
4=> Product: Fallen Haven - game/strategy
Reviewed By: Jaz Garewal, mailto:seelebrennt@theriver.com
5=> Product: Norton For Your Eyes Only for Windows 95 - utilities/security
Reviewed By: Mike Gallo, mailto:gallomike@aol.com
6=> Product: Novell's Four Principles of NDS Design - book/networking
Reviewed By: Patrick Grote, mailto:pgrote@i1.net

--- BEGIN ISSUE

1=> Nothing This Issue

2=> Winner!
This week's winner: mrubin@MAIN.GOLDENGATE.NET.

3=> Product: MGI Software Corp.'s VideoWave - applications/graphics
Reviewed By Howard Carson, mailto:lrhc@interlog.com

If you've ever wanted to use your computer to create videos, movies, clips, special events previews, business presentations, or create special effects and titles for your home videos, VideoWave from MGI is definitely a product worthy of serious consideration. It appears to be the most comprehensive tool of its kind for home users (and a few professionals too.)

VideoWave is the second in a line-up of award winning products from MGI Software Corp. This Canadian based company has developed and marketed the industry leading PhotoSuite PC Photography software, and has now released VideoWave (PC Magazine Editor's Choice this month).

What's In The Package
VideoWave can be purchased several different ways. First and foremost, it's available in a package complete with manual and double CD at most popular computer stores (Computer City, Egghead, etc.) It can also be found bundled with video capture cards (into which you can plug your VCR). Either way, you'll likely not spend more than $199. VideoWave is also becoming available through a variety of OEM bundles issuing from both MGI and various video card manufacturers including ATI, Miro, Number 9, and Matrox.

All the packages contain that lovely double CD jewel case too. One CD, containing the main program and support files, is quite typical. The second CD is jammed full of video content; far more than enough for even the most ardent enthusiast to play with. The content CD contains quite a varied and eclectic mixture: animations, trailers, stock footage, business themes, stock sound effects, music, and even bitmaps and backgrounds for text overlays, textures and so on.

What We Tested
Proton Research used 8 home video fans and their Windows 95 computers (using everything from a P120 to a Pentium II MMX box), hooked up to a selection of video and capture cards from ATI (Mach 64 and 3D Rage), Matrox (Millenium), Number 9, and Miro (DRX and DC30.)

Despite the variety of test beds and conditions, we experienced very few program crashes, no system crashes at all, and superb compatibility with all the different cards.

We asked all of our testers to use their own VHS or Super VHS footage. None of the testers used anything less than a mid-range, brand name VCR. Two testers used some direct input from their Sony Mini DV digital video camera. In all cases, the preview window quality was 1:1 with the VCR monitor quality, with no line losses affecting the signal to VideoWave.

We also asked all of the testers to limit their video production to 6
minutes compressed and 3 minutes uncompressed.

We provided a testing checklist to ensure some consistent foundation on which to base testers results.

The Interface
The most striking initial aspect of VideoWave is the charcoal, sculpted, 3D look and feel of the program interface. It looks like nothing so much as hardware editing suite, but without the difficult learning curve. All of the main functions and control buttons (those lovely, new hover buttons), are up front and within easy reach. A quick reading of the excellent printed manual, or a quick browse through the well organized on-line Help system, will provide several thorough and easy to understand tutorials.

Once you're done with a tutorial or two, the interface will likely be seen as the friendliest one on your computer. MGI and its extensive R&D section have done a superb job designing a fine looking and intuitive interface. It is unlikely you'll ever find the interface intruding on your creativity.

The main control functions are on the left and right sides of the VideoWave desktop Preview window. The playback and associated controls are embedded on the right side, in a function bar which is identical in look and feel to an ultra-modern VCR/Stereo-type remote control. It's a very slick implementation of the concept. You've got to see it to appreciate the design; it's nothing like a standard Windows program. You're working in a soothing, sculpted and shaded environment.

The extensive Drag/Drop functions for clips and copies of video and sound are found on the left side of the preview window. That's where the library window is located, along with its associated controls.

At all times, the interface provides up-front controls for loading digital files, accessing your VCR (via whatever capture card you've installed), clipping frames or whole sections of video and sound, importing and exporting, reorganizing your production (cutting and pasting clips or frames; clips are actually just longer sections of video).

How It's Used
If you think of video editing as process that requires dozens and dozens of clipboards (or one clipboard with a whole bunch of slots, namely, a Library), you'll begin to get an idea of how easy it really is to put videos together using VideoWave. Most Windows users are familiar with clicking 'cut' or 'copy', then moving to a different place in a document (or another document altogether) and clicking 'paste'. The VideoWave implementation allows to you to have any number of cuts/clips of video and sound, hanging around in a visible library window. You can drag and drop any individual item to different locations in the production you're creating. If you drag and drop something onto the preview window, you'll be able to apply effects before dragging the item back into the library, or directly into a production. Unlike the Windows clipboard (which only allows one thing at a time), the library can store any number of AVI, MOV, MPEG, or WAV files, etc., which can be used in any order, at any time. Adding new things to the production library is simply a matter of dragging and dropping. Advance, scroll back, fast forward or rewind your production as it's displayed at the top of desktop, and just drop things into place. You can change the order of anything afterwards too.

The built in word processing functions in VideoWave allow you to add text (large amounts of it, if you choose), for everything from titles and credits, to informational data and instructions. The moment you begin adding text and effects to your productions, VideoWave's power really begins to show. This software can be an immensely powerful, easy to use tool for educational institutions, small business SOHO, and dozens of other professional applications. The fact that you can actually put names to people in your old home videos now, is just an nice little extra. The fact that the kids can produce their school projects in a unique form is also an exciting thought.

Special effects, backgrounds, textures, fades, wipes, and a huge range of other things, can be applied to any clip, frame or full production, in order to add emphasis or a little artistry to text, transitions between clips and almost anything at all. Once again, pointing and clicking is all that's needed to get things done.

Technical Things.
VideoWave uses a 320x240 pixel preview window, and needs a system resolution of at least 800x600 by 16 bit color (65k colors). That means just about any basic video card will drive just about any decent monitor well enough to get the most out of VideoWave. For any significant amounts of home-based production, you'll also be wise to have about 200MB of free hard drive space. The installed software is only about 60MB, which includes a few samples to play with. You can always grab more samples from the content CD, as you need them.

There are good selections of VCRs and capture cards available right now. The best buy will be the one recommended either by your computer dealer (if you already have a VCR), or by your TV/VCR dealer (if you already have a capture card.) If you have neither, purchase them at the same time and make sure you've got a full exchange deal because not all capture cards work with all VCRs. If you already have a good video card, ask the manufacturer (or check their WWW site) for their recommendation for a capture card and VCR combination.

VideoWave imports and exports in a variety of popular formats and a variety of compression schemes. It also accommodates a variety of codecs (compressor / decompressor) routines. VideoWave is compatible with AVI, MPEG, MOV, Win95 codec, Video Interactive from Intel (which is shipped with VideoWave), CinePak, Intel Indeo R3.2, Microsoft Video 1, Microsoft RLE, and Intel Indeo R1.1. If you have a Miro video card, the Miro installation routines places its own Miro Video M-JPEG compressor. Of course, you can always produce your videos without any compression (and therefore without a codec), but the file sizes will be quite large (the quality will be better too; most codecs involve some loss of image and sound quality.)

As far as basic computer system requirements are concerned, VideoWave should run comfortably on any system which runs Windows 95 at a decent pace. That means 486s are out and real Pentiums are in. As usual, stay away from low speed 586s from AMD and Cyrix. A P120 works awfully well and anything faster is just delightful, especially when coupled with a decent video card or accelerator (those cheap video 'cards' which are built into motherboards will not do too well.)

Conclusions
A panel of 8 users each managed to produce their own edited videos, complete with titles, fades, wipes, swirls and other effects, explanatory text, and so on, all from VHS and Super VHS sources. Most of the questions asked of MGI's tech support revolved around the best way to use certain functions. Getting up and running wasn't a problem for anyone, although a few people were hesitant about installing the capture cards. Since the capture cards were all Win95 'Plug n' Play' compatible however, there were very few problems.

VideoWave deserves a hearty recommendation. It's loaded with features, packed with content, easy and fun to use, and creative as heck. What's more, the low price tag is too attractive to pass up. All of the testers on our panel asked to keep the VideoWave software as registered users, rather than temporary testers (thereby ensuring upgrade notices!) Try VideoWave. You'll like it.

VideoWave from MGI Software Corp.
<http://www.mgisoft.com>

4=> Product: Fallen Haven - game/strategy
Reviewed By: Jaz Garewal, mailto:seelebrennt@theriver.com
Reviewed on: Pentium 200MHZ, 64 MB RAM, 8X CD-ROM, Windows 95
Requires: 486DX2/66MHZ, 8 MB RAM, 2X CD-ROM, Windows 95

Fallen Haven falls right in line behind both Warcrafts and Command & Conquer in terms of story, graphics, sound and gameplay.

Installing Fallen Haven is easy with Windows 95's Autoplay and Installshield Wizard. There are two installation options, standard and full. Standard installs the game(35 MB) while full installs the game and animation files(85 MB). The full installation does make the game run faster then standard, but not a whole lot faster so you if you trade a few ounces of patience you can save 50 MB.

The story in war strategy games is more important then the story in 3-D shooters(Doom, Quake, etc.), but it's not very important. The story of Fallen Haven goes like this, in the future, a civilization located far away from Earth comes into contact with an alien craft. The craft is marked with alien symbols and it doesn't try to communicate. Fearing that alien beings maybe trapped in the craft, the people of the civilization guide it to an off planet research facility. When the scientists of the facility tried to penetrate the exterior of the craft, it explodes destroying the facility and everyone in it. Seeing this as an act of war, the civilization sends out a fleet to search out and destroy the creators of the 'war machine'.

The machine was a deep space probe manufactured by an Earth based company that used explosives to safeguard their technology. The company used to have a monopoly on this technology, but the government then made this monopoly illegal so the company switched to manufacturing weapons. The company then started creating paranoia amongst human colonies on colony planets and because of this paranoia the colonies bought weapons from this company to arm themselves against each other. The furthest colony planet, New Haven, had fifteen provinces on it, each armed against each other by the company. The province of Haven decided to break away from the company and build its own weapons and weapons factories.

Then the aliens arrived and noticed the same alien markings(the company's logo and name) on machinery on New Haven. The aliens landed in New Haven and began to attack. The provinces refused to make any treaties with each other, so they remained separate from each other.

The graphics in Fallen Haven, while not being bad, aren't impressive. The colors are bland and basic when compared to those of Command & Conquer and both Warcrafts. The individual army units are too small and don't have individual animations. When a tank shoots, there isn't any explosion at the turret, just a small dot that leaves the front of the tank and flies towards the intended target. When the units move from one position to another, there isn't any noticeable wheel movements, the unit just seems to slide from space to the next(with the exception of the hover units, which are supposed to slide). The explosions, on the other hand, are pretty cool. A quick mushroom explosion shoots up from the attacked unit and little pieces of shrapnel flies away from it, and the ground beneath the attacked unit is charred.

The sound is not that great. The sound of the units moving is the same for every unit. The music is a lot like Command & Conquers soundtrack, but it's a lot more basic and repetitive which gets on the nerves after awhile; I found myself shutting off the music after 15 minutes of listening to it.

The gameplay is different from both Warcrafts and Command & Conquer. You get to choose to be the humans or the aliens(Taurans). Their are differences between humans and Taurans; humans have fast units, while Taurans have slow units, humans have average firepower, while Taurans have high firepower, etc. Instead of having to complete missions, you have a pre-built base located in your capital territory. From this base you move into and take over the surrounding territories while your opponent does the same from their established capital. Some territories have little flags on them which means that if you attack it, there is a mission that you have to complete to gain the territory.

There are two modes of play, strategic and tactical. During strategic mode, structures are built and repaired, and units are made. Tactical mode is combat mode, it occurs when the player attacks a territory or when the player's territory is attacked. Tactical mode lasts until one army is defeated or surrenders. Strategic mode is the mode the game is in most of the time.

The structures in the game are pretty basic. There are structures that maintain the base, like powerplants, structures that defend the base, like turrets, and structures that make weapon units, like barracks. There's nothing unique or different about the structures that makes Fallen Haven stand out.

The units are the best thing in this game. Each unit has two weapons, a light weapon and a heavy weapon. There isn't one unit that is well rounded, each unit has it's own strengths and weaknesses(for example, the artillery has long range, but its armor is not that strong). Victory depends on how well you mix and match various units to form a well balanced army.

Fallen Haven is not a spectacular game. I would pick either of the Warcrafts or Command & Conquer over this game, but if you're desperate for a new game in the same genre then go ahead and pick up Fallen Haven. It's nothing new, but it isn't disappointing.

Interactive Magic
<http://www.imagicgames.com>
Installation/Ease of Use: Gold
User-Friendliness: Gold
Quality: Silver

5=> Product: Norton For Your Eyes Only for Windows 95 - utilities/security
Reviewed By: Mike Gallo, mailto:gallomike@aol.com
Reviewed on: Pentium 100, 1 GB HD, 16MB RAM
Requires: 486 or better, 500K uncompressed disk
space on first drive, 4MB additional space, 8 MB Ram
MSRP: $79.95

Every day computer systems and their data are being subjected to ever increasing levels of attacks by computer criminals. Recently, the Computer Security Institute released a study that found that of the companies that could detect computer crimes, losses totaled $100M in theft of products and services and loss of productivity. Even everyday users like you and I are becoming more vulnerable. Many business users have laptop computers and think nothing about the fact that valuable and proprietary company data sits helplessly on a laptop's hard disk just waiting for someone to steal it.

That's where a product like Symantec's For Your Eyes Only (FYEO) becomes a necessity. FYEO is both and encryption program and a security program. It's an encryption program because users can scramble the contents of their files making them unreadable to all but those with the proper key to unscramble it. FYEO is a security product because it allows a user to restrict access to both the overall computer and to various files on the hard disk.

Several options are available when the program is installed. Users can activate a boot manager program which will not allow the computer to even be booted unless a password is typed in. Another option allows users to password protect screen savers and notebook power downs. All users who want to use the security services in FYEO must have their own user account and password. Setting up a user account is both simple and straightforward. Users pick a user name, a password, and then select the size of their private key.

FYEO uses what is known as public key cryptography(PKC). PKC uses public and private keys. If user A wants to send a file to user B, user A finds B's public key. Then User A encrypts the file with B's public key and sends it to B. User B then uses his PRIVATE key to decrypt the file. The strength of public key cryptography depends on a lot of things, but two very important ones are type of encryption algorithm used and the size of the public key (measured in bits). Public keys are the product of two very large prime numbers. A prime number is a special number that can only be evenly divided by 1 and the number itself. If you were able to take a public key and figure out the two prime numbers whose product equals the key, then you can defeat the security. The larger the key, the more difficult it is to factor it. Symantec recommends a key size of 768 bits, however Bruce Schneier, author of Applied Cryptography states that users should use a size of 1024 bits or greater.

FYEO allows users to generate public keys up to 2048 bits which should help make things extra secure. Users have the choice of several encryption algorithms to encrypt data. These include RC4, RC5, DES, Triple DES, and Blowfish(designed by Bruce Schneier). DES, which stands for Data Encryption Standard, is a federal government approved encryption algorithms that it uses for its security systems.

Some algorithms are stronger than others, and some take more time to encrypt/decrypt data than others. I found that the program performed very well when it came to processing times. In fact, it did so well on my Pentium that I had to find HUGE files to encrypt/decrypt in order to measure the time differences. Luckily, one of my games has a ten megabyte file that was perfect to test on. In general it takes a little more time to encrypt the file than to decrypt it. The fastest algorithm could encrypt the 10 meg file in 20 seconds. The slowest took 40 seconds. I think that's pretty good.

FYEO allows users to seamlessly encrypt and decrypt files either manually or automatically using smart folders. Smart folders are special directories set up by FYEO that accomplishes two things. 1. It prevents unauthorized users from even opening or reading the file. 2. It will automatically decrypt a file when it is opened and encrypt the file when it is saved back to the disk. I used several types of programs to open and save files to the smart folder. All worked fine without a hitch.

FYEO is integrated into Windows 95. Right clicking a file bring up the traditional Windows 95 menu options for that file. This menu will include an option for FYEO. Users can also access FYEO's feature inside the windows explorer. The one thing users can't do is encrypt files directly from an application unless it is being saved to a smart folder.

FYEO also comes with a secure delete feature. As you may or may not know, when a file is deleted, usually only the directory contents are erased. The actual contents of the file still reside on the drive. Over time the file gets erased as its sectors are overwritten with new data. However, using special utility programs, a thief could read the contents of your drive sector by sector to see if there was any interesting or damaging information. FYEO can delete these file permanently by overwriting the contents of the file with 1s and 0s a number of times.

I chatted with some folks online at Symatec's web site, www.symantec.com. One question I posed to the Symantec folks was how secure a users' private key was since it resided on the hard drive. Since the key is not physically separate, I worried that if my hard drive was stolen a thief could find the key and then decrypt the drive's contents. Not to worry, came the reply, a user's private key is itself encrypted with the blowfish algorithm using a 128 bit key(how is that key protected?).

Currently there is no standard file format for encrypted files. The result is that if your friend uses another program like Pretty Good Privacy, and you use FYEO, you will not be able to send file to each for encryption/decryption since they will not understand the other's encrypted file format.

A feature that I think should be included in FYEO is something called hashing. A hash is a special unique number that is generated for a file. It is like a fingerprint. If one byte of a file changed, then a different hash number would be generated for the file. In a security product like FYEO, hash values could serve as a marker for the file to ensure its contents were not tampered with.

FYEO comes with a special disk label to make an emergency recovery diskette. The disk is used to recover your file if users should either forget their passwords or something becomes corrupt in the program. I would very highly recommend making one of these disks. Once a file is encrypted, there is no way (ordinary) users can get it back without using FYEO.

Users on networks will find FYEO a lot easier and more useful than standalone users. Sharing files on the network securely is as easy as designating that person's user name on the share list. Trading file with other users is also simpler because a central directory of public keys can be set up so that all users can quickly and easily find the public key of their intended recipient. A special version of For Your Eyes Only is available for network administrators.

Trading files between two stand alone users is a little more difficult. Both users must export their public key to a file using FYEO export feature. After sending each other's file, the users tell FYEO to read it in and add it to their local key list directory. After that it's very simple to send files back and forth.

FYEO is definitely not the last end all security program. It does not seamlessly work with email programs, but can work seamlessly with other applications through the user of smart folders. If you're a network user you will not appreciate the fact that FYEO adds yet another level of passwords you must remember in order to get onto your computer. I would like to see products like FYEO piggy back off either the Windows 95 password or my network user password. That would really help. That would not stop me from buying this product since it simply offers too much protection for the money. I give FYEO a very high recommendation.

Symantec Corp.
<http://www.symantec.com>

Installation:  Gold
Usability: Gold
Overall Rating: Gold

6=> Product: Novell's Four Principles of NDS Design - book/networking
Reviewed By: Patrick Grote, mailto:pgrote@i1.net
Authors: Jeffrey Woods and Blair Thomas
Publisher: IDG Books

Anyone who has worked with Novell's NetWare since version 3.X will know the name Jeffrey Hughes. Jeffrey Hughes is the godfather of NetWare. He is the person people turn to for answers on NetWare at every level of the computing industry. He dispenses advice through articles, etc., but now you can have his vision of NDS Design with the book Novell's Four Principles of NDS Design. 

NDS is Novell Directory Services and is the basis of NetWare 4.X and IntraNetWare. Security, user information, network information and much more is stored inside the database known as NDS. Since it is the brain of the network it needs to be protected. Novell has designed NDS to be redundant and fault tolerant. In addition, NDS is highly scalable. This combination leads to many design issues. In fact, NDS Design is more of an art than a science. Until now there have been no definitive guides to designing NDS. 

This book is soft cover and weighs in with four sections containing nine chapters resulting in 340 pages. The book is written for people who have a thorough understanding of NDS and the various utilities that allow you to design, configure, maintain and run NDS. If you are someone who has worked with NetWare 4.X or IntraNetWare in an NDS enabled environment for more than a year you are ready for this book. 

The book is well illustrated with real world examples used for examples. There are NOTE bullets throughout the book with tips and hints and an index. It would have been nice to have a glossary as some terms even I wasn't familiar with. 

The chapters are grouped by which principle they fall under. This is a great way of pacing the reader so they can base their location through the book. The chapters you will find include:

1) Introduction to the Four Principles

First Principle
2) Design the Top of the Tree Based on the Network
3) Design the Bottom of the Tree to Represent the Network Resources

Second Principle
4) Divide NDS into Partitions to Scale NDS Across Network Servers
5) Replicate for Fault Tolerance and to Reduce Synchronization Traffic

Third Principle
6) Use NDS Objects to Define Organization, Administration, and User Access
7) Apply NDS Access Methods

Fourth Principle
8) Design and Configure Time Synchronization
9) Manage Time Synchronization through SET Parameters

As you read through the book you will find yourself looking at your NDS and shaking your head. Some of the design tips are so enlightening you will constantly feel like you have discovered the first network cable. 

The chapter that is worth the price of the book alone is Design and Configure Time Synchronization. I have seen many of staid system engineer almost come to blows when discussing time synchronization on WANs. 

This book is a must for any consultant, network administrator or support person who works with Novell NetWare NDS Enabled systems. You will not only refer to this when you design or convert your system, but also as you administer the network daily. 

IDG Books
<http://www.idgbooks.com>

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Managing Editor: Patrick Grote -- mailto:pgrote@i1.net
Assistant Editor: Writer Liaison: Doug Reed--
mailto:dr2web@sprynet.com
Archives: ftp://ftp.uu.net/published/compunotes/
Website: <http://www.compunotes.com/main.html>
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fax: (314) 909-1662
voice: (314) 909-1662
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END OF ISSUE


