CompuNotes Notes from The Cutting Edge of Personal Computing April 27, 1997 Issue 77 +=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D= +=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D To subscribe, send an e-mail to listserv@peach.ease.lsoft.com SUBSCRIBE COMPUNOTES-L FirstName LastName To unsubscribe, send an e-mail to listserv@peach.ease.lsoft.com SIGNOFF COMPUNOTES-L +=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D= +=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D CONTENTS My Notes: 1=3D> We Need Your Feedback, mailto:pgrote@inlink.com 2=3D> This Issue's Winner! Web Site Reviews: 3=3D> Site: Sierra On-Line http://www.sierra.com/ Type of Site: Commercial / Soft- and hardware vendor Reviewed By: Lex Raaphorst arpt@xs4all.nl Reviews: 4=3D> Product: Football Pro '97 Reviewed By: Steve Lozowski, mailto:slozowsk@locke.ccil.org 5=3D> Product: Post-it Software Notes Reviewed By: Don Hughes, mailto:dhughes@wwdc.com 6=3D> Product: Quickverse Library Reviewed By: Gail Marsella, mailto:gbcmars@enter.net 7=3D> Product: Skymap 3.1 Reviewed By: Doug Reed, mailto:dr2web@sprynet.com Requirements: Windows 8=3D> Product: Keyview Reviewed By: Harold Goldstein 9=3D> Clickables! --- BEGIN ISSUE 1=3D> We Need Your Feedback! Why not take a few moments and let us know how we are doing? Drop me a line at mailto:pgrote@inlink.com and speak your mind! 2=3D> Winner! This issue's winner is ! 3=3D> Site: Sierra On-Line http://www.sierra.com/ Type of Site: Commercial / Soft- and hardware vendor Reviewed By: Lex Raaphorst arpt@xs4all.nl Browser Used: IE 3.0 (M$) Browser Recommended by Site: none Enhancements/Plug-Ins Required: Java-applets Internet Connection Used: ISDN Load Time of Main Page during Peak Hours: Pretty quick, at least less than a minute. Load Time of Main Page during off-peak Hours: less than 10 seconds First of all, Sierra's site is VERY commercial. Their main page opens with a menu and of course some advertisements for their products (February blowout sale, Boggle your brains and their Screaming 3D- card). I think it's normal for a company and, which is more important, it doesn't disturb the overview. The site is very recognizable, every menu or submenu is based on three main colors (black, white and orange). Okay, let's enter the place! The first menu-choice has several submenus. Sierra A-Z is pretty obvious I guess, it shows all their products alphabetically. Sierra Entertainment leads you to the latest game-releases. You can find them all here, from Nascar 2 to Larry: Love for Sail and from Phantasmagoria 2 to Betrayal in Antara. At Sierra's Originals you can the older games where Sierra tries to make still some money on. I think 'Home' and 'Education' speaks pretty much for themselves as does 'Sierra Macs'. Here too Sierra points to their 3D-videocard. Second in the main-menu is 'New releases'. A little confusing is the fact that the submenus 'New titles' and 'Upcoming releases' are partly the same. But for the fans there are some hot items and previews to find here! With 'Special offers' Sierra does another effort to sell you something. 'Live on line' contains the only not working link (at least when I tried it the last few days). And it's the one I love on those sites... indeed 'contests'. I'll never give up although I'm not very lucky till now. Here you can find Sierra's own on-line gaming engine 'Sigs' as well as their net-games 'Stockmarket' and 'Realm'. Realms can be a very nice game. Several months ago I tried to do the beta-test, but in those times I had only connection via a 14K4 modem and it was impossible to play that way. Now the test is over and you may pay to play! Which is not my favorite occupation (I'm Dutch, remember! :)). There's also a message-board available here. Now we get to the really important section on Sierra's site! 'Free stuff' contains patches, giveaways and demos. To start with the last one, Sierra has the good habit to make a playable demo of almost every game the release. I check this place out pretty often, mostly to see the demo is too large :). Without kidding, I try them regularly and at least their server is pretty stable, so I was never cut off after 98% of a 14 Mb demo. On the giveaway-page is some nice stuff available. Remember the good old "Johnny Castaway" ? It's for free now! As is another nice screensaver, Diving adventure. This one is really worth the effort! You can also get their internet-games Hoyle Blackjack and Hoyle Poker for free. Don't tell any further, but I tried out the first one several times during lunch-break. Unfortunately, at that time there seems to be nobody awake to play against. Last, but certainly not least, "au contraire" as the French say, can you find the patches-section over here. There are loads of them. Which can mean two things: their software is pretty buggy or they take care of their customers. I think it's a combination, but they do have a great customer service. It seems they have a patch for every game they ever released :). Even the old games are still listed. To me that's great, because there are still several games I want to play when I can get my pawns on them (for a very cheap price). To get back on the customer-service, I have very good experiences with Sierra. They have a 90-days return policy: when you don't like a game you can return it within 90 days and you'll get you money back. Of course you'll have to tell them why you don't like it. I never used this (because I try them out first :)), but several people I know did for reasons like "I got bored by it after 3 days" or "it wasn't what I expected" and they did get their money back! For myself, I mailed them several times with questions and always got an answer in about a week. I can't say that of other companies, it seems more rule to avoid an answer than to give one. I can't say anything else about this site than 'Keep up the good work!'. The overview is great, probably because they kept it pretty simple. Fancy stuff is nice, but regardless the download time, it takes you often away from the main point. I bet when you went never to Sierra's before and you are looking for something special, let's say a patch for Police Quest Swat, you'll find it within a few moments. (For those who wants to try it out, take another example, because this one isn't there :)). Reviewers Overall Spin: Gold Site Content: Gold Site Presentation: Platinum 4=3D> Product: Football Pro '97 Reviewed By: Steve Lozowski, mailto:slozowsk@locke.ccil.org Requires: 486/66, 8 MB RAM, Windows 95, SVGA Local-bus video, CD-ROM, 60 MB hard disk space Recommended: Pentium, 16 MB RAM, mouse, joystick(s), Sound Blaster compatible sound card MSRP: $54.95 Football Pro '97 is Sierra's latest edition of it's award-winning football simulation. It features all the NFL teams, with rosters including all players from the beginning of the 1996 season, and leagues with team rosters from the beginning of the 1994 and 1995 seasons. Also included are league rosters from the end of the 1993, 1994, and 1995 seasons, so that you can play the following year with teams from the previous seasons. I found this game to be a very realistic simulation of American football, as well as a challenging opponent. There are three modes for both play calling and controlling the action. Basic play calling just lets you choose options like "pass short left", "pass long middle", and "run right". Your defensive plays are likewise limited to simple choices. In standard play calling, you get diagrams of the plays in your game plan, showing how the players will move after the ball is snapped. The game plan might include up to 64 plays, arranged on the screen so that you can see a group of four at a time. The suggested play from your game plan is highlighted, and you can choose any play. Advanced play calling allows you to customize more options. You can decide to manually control substitutions, how long substitutions are in effect, and whether the clock keeps running when you make substitutions. Basic action mode limits you to basically a coaching game, where you only control snapping the ball, and your players execute the play you called. Standard action mode allows you to take control of one player. On offense you can control the player with the ball, and on special teams, the intended receiver. On defense, you can choose one player to control, and switch to the player closest to the ball carrier at any time. If you do not take control of a player in standard mode, the computer will run the play as called. Advanced mode gives you more control of the offense. After you snap the ball, the computer will control handoffs on running plays. After that (and on all passing plays) you must control the ball carrier, including the quarterback. You must also control all kicks, which you can let the computer do in standard mode. By must, I mean that if you do not move the player with the ball or the kicker, they will just stand there. As expected, the passing game requires more player involvement in advanced action mode, and standard mode, if you take control of the quarterback. You can check your receivers, cycling through them, until you find an open one, or throw out of bounds. The computer controls timed passes in standard mode, but you can throw either bullet passes or lobs in the other patterns. In advanced mode, you must also select the location for timed passes. In both modes, while the ball is in the air, you can take control of the receiver. On of my favorite features is the ability to audible on both offense and defense before the ball is snapped. It was thrilling in an early game when I had third and one, with the defense in a obvious goal line run defense. I audibled to a long pass, and my receiver went all the way for a touchdown. There are additional moves you can have a single player execute. A running back can attempt a stiff-arm or spin move, with an increased chance of a fumble. Both offensive and defensive players can leap or dive, although diving increases the chance of an injury. All those game-playing features are only a part of Football Pro '97. The game's depth is witnessed by a 200-plus page manual. Much of it is devoted to the play editor and league play. The play editor allows you to create your own plays to supplement or replace those supplied with the teams. A play wizard is included for those wishing some help. You can take your team on the practice field to see how the play will execute, as either offense only, or scrimmaging against your defense. If I was to run a team in a league, I would use the practice field to learn all the plays before facing any opponents. You only have so much time to call plays, and the names below the diagrams are very cryptic. League play lets you control one or more teams through the entire season. You can select a team from the default league, or build your own league with friends. You can recreate the NFL by drafting all players from a common pool. Teams can be either human or computer owned. Leagues can be either single season or career. In the latter, players actually age and eventually retire. A career-ending injury is also possible. Nearly every facet of team management is present in this game, including moving players on and off the active roster, trading up to three players at a time with other teams, signing free agents, and training camps. Remote leagues can be created, where one person acts as commissioner. The other owners then play the games on their own PC's and mail the result files to the commissioner. This type of play requires the visiting team to create the plays, game plan, and coaching profile to be executed on his opponent's PC. Instead of actually playing league games, you can have the computer simulate them. Normal simulated games use the football physics of Foot- ball Pro '97 to run a game controlling the players as it normally would. A "'fast sim" does not actually play a game, but results are generated based off ratings. Statistics are not nearly as realistic in these fast sim games. Head-to-head games can also be played via modem or network connection. It is theoretically possible for two people to play on one computer using a joystick and the keyboard. This did not seem an acceptable setup to me, as the person using the keyboard is at a disadvantage, especially in navigating the playbook in a timely manner. Football Pro '97 also includes a player ratings profile editor. This allows you to change any of the eight ratings categories for any player if you disagree with the default settings. You can also modify the qualifications for Pro Bowl selection - yes, you get to play Pro Bowls too! Player and team statistics are provided for exhibition games and accumulated for league play. If you're into statistics (and what true football fan isn't?) you can track league leaders, player of the game, player of the week, MVP, career stats, and many more. In career leagues, retired players may also get elected to the Hall of Fame. Visually, this game is very pleasing. Weather conditions such as rain or snow change the display appropriately. You can use the CAMS (Camera Angle Management System) to view play from nearly any angle, including a blimp view. Instant replay is provided for every play. You can run the replay as many times as you want, zooming in, in slow motion, and with other "VCR" controls. I found this useful for determining what went wrong on plays, in addition to enjoying a replay of a touchdown or sack. You can save your favorite replays to share with others. In league games, the computer automatically saves five plays as highlights. The sounds from the game are also very well done. You hear the crowd cheering or booing (with the occasional horn blowing), quarter- backs calling plays, audibles being called, and the grunting of players making blocks or hits. An optional referee signals first downs, penalties, and scores. Football Pro '97 is so rich that there are other features I did not even describe. This is not a game for someone unfamiliar with foot- ball. I would not suggest this to anyone who was not already an NFL fan, and probably not to the casual fan. Unless you have a concept of the offensive and defensive play strategy, this game could be very hard to win. As it is, the AI (artificial intelligence) gives me a decent challenge. You cannot go out and just throw the ball on every down and expect to beat many computer-controlled teams. It helps to know the strengths and weaknesses of your team. The initial version of this game that you'll find in a store has many bugs. The first thing I did was to download the patch from Sierra's web site. There are still some bugs in the program, and Sierra has promised another patch, which should be out by the time you read this. The manual lists the required disk space at 100 free MB. Install options take either 30 MB (with an additional 30 MB free after the install), 124 MB, or a whopping 270 MB for the full install. I went with the minimum, and performance was acceptable on my machine. In conclusion, I recommend this game for football fans looking to try their hand at coaching. Its multitude of features make Football Pro '97 a great football simulation. It's not for those looking for just arcade-style entertainment, but has more than enough to satisfy the armchair head coach. Sierra On-Line, Inc. WWW: Installation/Ease of Use: Gold User-Friendliness: Gold Quality: Silver User: NFL Fan 5=3D> Product: Post-it Software Notes Reviewed By: Don Hughes, mailto:dhughes@wwdc.com Requirements: Windows, color monitor 3M's Post-it Notes is unduly simplified software program that is easy to install, does not have a lengthy learning curve, nor an extensive manual to comprehend. The manufacture intended Post-it Notes for people who are fond of sticking little yellow pieces of paper to just about everything in their office. Moreover, the electronic Post-it Notes cannot become lost or mislaid, when attached to your personal Post-it Memoboard. Finally Post-it Note users now have an electronic abode on which to stick on their notes, instead of using the edge of a monitor. I tested Post-it Notes on a 486DX 100MHz VL bus, with 16 meg of ram, ATI WinTurbo graphics card. The program was supplied on two 1.44 floppy disks for Windows and Windows 95. During installation, Post-it Notes was set not to load as a TSR when Windows 95 started. However, other users may want to have Post-it auto-load during start-up process, and have the program active. Once the program has loaded you click on the Post-it Notes right side button and a sliding button bar pops our. The mini-tool bar has six buttons, that give the user access to a function or a menu item The user has the choice of: Help, Display Alarm, Find Note, Note background color, Memoboards, and options. The Options menu, has nine more choices: 1. Always on Top -- keeps Notes on top of another program. 2. Preferences -- for Notes, memoboards, Alarm, sound, and miscellaneous settings. 3. Mail-Setup -- send Notes as e-mail over a network. 4. Show Trash -- shows you what is in the trash can and allows you to delete it. 5. Import Notes-to and from the Memoboards 6. Export desktop Notes from a Memoboard to a file (memo or text) 7. Print desktop Notes -- print the memoboards contents to plain paper or laser Post-It notes. 8. About list version and the maker of Post-it notes 9. Exit. The "send mail" option is compatible only with cc:Mail or Microsoft mail and was not tested for this review. Using the program is elementary, you just click on the little yellow pad at the bottom right of your screen, and up pops a Post-it Note. If you left click on the top of the Post-It note you can change the: Font, Color, Cut, Copy, Paste, Set Alarm, Send Note, and Print Note or Trash Note. Another menu pops up when you right click: add the date and time, Size the note to the text, Move the note to a Memoboard, or minimize the note screen. The most striking feature of Post-It Notes is the Memoboard. You can use the memoboard for phone lists, to-do lists, project notes, birthday reminders, etc. An advantage is that you can create as many memoboards as you like or need. Also you can set an alarm to remind you of important dates of thing's to-do, and when the alarm sounds, you can clear, or set the alarm to snooze. Admirable program, but, you still like to have those little yellow notes to stick-up? Not to fret! Post-it Notes has an added print feature capable of printing to plain paper, or you can buy sick- up Post-it Note paper for ink Jet or Laser printers. If you are a fan of Post-it Notes, then you are sure to delight in using this program. It's inexpensive and retails for under $30.00 in Canada and the United States. 3M's Post-it Notes program is easy to install, easy to use, and easy on the wallet. You can download a demo version of the program from their web site, plus more clip art, check out 3M=C6s web site: http://www.mmm.com/psnotes. 3M 6=3D> Product: Quickverse Library Reviewed By: Gail Marsella, mailto:gbcmars@enter.net Parsons Software--the people who bring you Quicken and Personal Tax Edge--also sell many products for churches, clergy, and religious study groups. The Bible reference material is geared largely toward Christian religions, but some of the concordances and language tutors (ancient Greek and Hebrew) might be usable in the Jewish tradition as well. The program reviewed here is the Quickverse Library, an electronic book reader for use with STEP-compatible electronic books. STEP stands for Standard Template for Electronic Publishing, and any book written in the STEP format should be accessible with this program. The marketing literature accompanying Quickverse Library gives the impression that the STEP format is particularly common in religious/bible electronic publishing; I do not know how widely this format is accepted by general electronic publishers. Just to avoid confusion, Quickverse Library and Quickverse are two different Parsons products. The Quickverse Library is an electronic book reader. Quickverse is an electronic Bible, with search functions, specific translations, and the ability to keep a reading schedule and take notes. The Quickverse Library can directly access Quickverse, but only if you have purchased the latter separately. Quickverse is not included on the Quickverse Library CD-ROM. Too bad, too. It should be. Parsons would have had a much better product if they had included Quickverse with the book reader, and just charged a little more. In addition to the book reader, Quickverse Library CD-ROM also provides a startup collection of Bible study books, one for each book of the Bible. Let's dispense with those right away. They are not impressive. Each "book" in the startup collection is ten or fifteen very short chapters; if you printed an entire book out you would have only ten or fifteen pages, a lot of it white space. The introductory material gives only the most superficial background in the history and customs of the period, and good background is essential for a full understanding of scripture. Worse, too often the questions for discussion take the form "how do you feel about ___?" or "list all the times that ___happens." Even beginning Bible study participants have gotten beyond this simplistic level, although to be fair there are some genuinely penetrating questions, too. Overall, however, the package is not adequate for serious adult Bible study. The Quickverse Library book reader itself, however, is a decent program. It requires a 486 or better class computer (with a CD-ROM drive), and prefers Windows 95 or NT, although it will run under Windows 3.1 with Win32s installed and at least 6 Megs of RAM. The program takes up less than 3 Megs of hard disk space, keeping most of the data on the CD-ROM. The main screen of Quickverse Library is pleasantly uncluttered and utilitarian. Two of the buttons on the toolbar are preset to access Parson's "PC Bible Atlas" and the above-mentioned "Quickverse" programs if you have purchased them. The rest of the buttons are for copying, printing, searching, and other common tasks. One could argue that a notepad and a few other tools would have made it more complete, but sometimes bells and whistles just get in the way. When you open an electronic book, it appears in two panes. On the left is the table of contents, and on the right is the actual text. You can open and either tile or cascade several different books. The competent search engine can search by either text or verse, and there is a feature to access indexes from books that have them. Most of the STEP books currently available from Parsons are collections of sermons from various preachers. Others are undoubtedly available from other publishers. Parsons Technology One Parsons Drive, P.O. Box 100 Hiawatha, IA 52233-0100 order: 1-800-223-6925 7=3D> Product: Skymap 3.1 Reviewed By: Doug Reed, mailto:dr2web@sprynet.com Requirements: Windows Skymap is one of those nifty little programs that is neither a game nor an application but can still be fun to play with. If it isn't obvious from the name, Skymap contains maps of the sky - the stars and planets to be more exact. For amateur astronomy buffs wanting to find a particular constellation, planet, or star, Skymap is a great little tool to help you on your way. This review covers version 3.1 of Skymap, a full 32-bit version for Windows 95 users (a previous version ran on both Windows 3.1 and Windows 95). Believe it or not, in this age of the CDROM Skymap came on 4 3.5 inch floppies (Gasp! The horror of it! :^) ). Despite this "shortcoming", Skymap contains a catalog of 88,000 stars (the complete catalog of 259,000 stars is also available as an option) as well as the customary planets and other astronomical entities. Updates are made available from the Skymap website, including updated information on comets (like the currently visible Hale-Bopp). Objects in the database are easily located by either name or catalog number (should you happen to know it). Input a name of a star and you can call up a considerable amount of information about the star, or you can simply click on a star on the map and bring up information about it. This provides a considerable database for observing the stars. Skymap comes with two maps - Horizon view and Area view. Horizon view shows you the view of the stars from the point of view of a local observer, given a location (which you can set to anywhere on Earth) and a direction. Area view is just that - it shows a small section of the sky. In addition to changing the location and direction to view the stars, you can alter the date - anywhere from 4000 BC to 8000 AD! In default mode Skymap displays the Horizon view from your current location and time, a rather slick way to determine quickly if the star or whatever is even above the horizon at the moment. If you can't find, chances are its not, but you can search for the object by name and Skymap will tell you that the object is below the horizon and will it become viewable. The map can also be configured to show the effects of daylight or moonlight to determine whether lighting will affect your ability to view a particular star. One other neat bit about Skymap: if you have a Meade LX-200 telescope, you can use Skymap and your computer to control it! Using your computer, you can point and click to bring up the object you wish to view, quickly and easily. Too bad I couldn't try this out - but it sounds like a really neat feature for astronomy buffs. Skymap is a great program for astronomy buffs of all ages and interest levels. I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in the stars. JASC, Inc. CompuServe: Go JASC Installation/Ease of Use: Gold Medal User-Friendliness: Gold Medal Quality: Gold Medal User: Astronomy buffs 8=3D> Product: Keyview Reviewed By: Harold Goldstein Reviewed on: Pentium100, 32MB RAM, Windows 95, 28.8K dialup access Requires: Windows 3.1 or higher, Windows 95 or Windows NT 3.51 or higher. MSRP:$49.95 FTP bills Keyview as the ultimate file viewer. It provides cross-platform support for nearly 200 formats including QuickTime, MPEG, HTML, Zip, UUencode, TIFF, JPEG, Corel Draw, Microsoft Word (Win & Mac), WordPerfect (Win & Mac), Excel (Win & Mac) and many more. Keyview also operates as a Netscape Navigator Inline Plug-in, enabling users to view, print, copy, convert and compress files delivered over the web. It delivers on most of its claims. Installation: Keyview comes packaged with both the 16 bit and 32 bit versions of the software; both consisting of 4 3 1/2" floppies. It installs via an easy to run setup program. Installation was quick and smooth. Although the manual indicates a need for 4.5 meg, my install uses about 6.5 meg on the harddrive. The first time it was installed it automatically configured itself as a plug-in for several file types on Netscape. I wish this had been a specified option. Interface: Simplicity itself. Your only real choice on startup is the File menu and you will most likely choose to open a file. Performance: Keyview opened every file I tried. I viewed word processing files (WP5, WP6, Word), graphic images (GIF, JPG), videos (MPG), sounds (MID, AIF), compressed files (ZIP); all flawlessly. File conversions were also, for the most part, as advertised. WP to/from Word, JPG to/from GIF were no problem. The only disappointments I had involved converting WP and Word files to HTML. I have not found a perfect converter, by any means, but I felt as if Keyview had more than its share of misinterpretations. If you need to convert different files to HTML often you may need a more expensive tool, such as HTML Transit. If your needs are more specific then http://webreference.com/html/converters.html may have a tool more appropriate to your needs. Two file types not supported, that we might hope for are: Adobe Photoshop's PSD image format and Adobe Acrobats PDF format. Otherwise, this is a great all purpose tool. FTP Software, Inc. http://www.ftp.com:987/store/keyview.html mailto:dano@ftp.com Installation/Ease of Use: Gold User-Friendliness: Gold Quality: Gold (except for HTML conversion) User: All 9=3D> Clickables! Sites Doug and I have come across this week you may be interested in: Banner Studies - How Effective are Web Banners? Working Women Chat Room Expert Exchange - Ask any Technical Question NT Security Fixes Free E-mail For Any User! Net Announce - Get The Latest from the Net! +=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D= +=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D Managing Editor: Patrick Grote -- mailto:pgrote@inlink.com Assistant Editor: Writer Liaison: Doug Reed-- mailto:dr2web@sprynet.com Archives: ftp://ftp.uu.net/published/compunotes/ Website: e-mail: mailto:notes@inlink.com fax: (314) 909-1662 voice: (314) 909-1662 +=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D= +=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D+=3D .