+OK 26535 octets Received: from VMS.DC.LSOFT.COM (vms.dc.lsoft.com [206.241.12.2]) by mixer.visi.com (8.8.4/8.7.5) with ESMTP id HAA06701 for ; Sun, 29 Dec 1996 07:28:44 -0600 (CST) Received: from vms.dc.lsoft.com by VMS.DC.LSOFT.COM (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <1.3A1A097A@VMS.DC.LSOFT.COM>; Sun, 29 Dec 1996 8:24:52 -0500 Received: from PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM by PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8c) with spool id 28729823 for COMPUNOTES-L@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM; Sun, 29 Dec 1996 08:24:38 -0500 Received: from administrator (pgrote.inlink.com [206.196.115.109]) by thor.inlink.com (8.8.0/V8) with SMTP id HAA15834 for ; Sun, 29 Dec 1996 07:24:27 -0600 (CST) Posted-Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 07:28:44 -0600 (CST) Received-Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 07:28:44 -0600 (CST) Priority: normal X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v2.42) Approved-By: "pgrote@inlink.com" Message-ID: <199612291324.HAA15834@thor.inlink.com> Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 07:23:21 +0000 Reply-To: pgrote@inlink.com Sender: "IBM Compatible Weekly Reviews, Interviews, and News - FREE!" Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "pgrote@inlink.com" Subject: CompuNotes #61 Part1 To: COMPUNOTES-L@eva.dc.LSOFT.COM Content-Type: text COMPUNOTES - Issue #61 - December 29, 1996 This Week's Contents: My Notes: 1) What a Holiday Season! 2) Next Week . . . 3) No News . . . 4) The Winner this Week! Columnists' Corner: 1) Bushman is Back! Reviews: 1) Product: Concurrent Programming in Java by Doug Lea Reviewed By: Doug Reed 2) Product: JavaScript: The Definitive Guide (Beta Edition) by David Flanagan Reviewed By: Doug Reed 3) Product: JASC Mediacenter Reviewed By: Judy Litt 4) Product: Normality Reviewed by: Michael Gallo 5) Product: Mighty Math Number Heroes Reviewed by: Danny Williams Web Sites: 1) Free Faxing on the Net with Magic Fax 2) What for Dinner? Interview: 1) None this week! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date : December 29, 1996|CompuNotes is a weekly publication available Issue: 61 |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 Indianapolis Colts! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Every issue of CompuNotes ever published can be found at the following ftp site: ftp://ftp.uu.net:/published/compunotes. Thanks to UUNET! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Web Site is at http://users.aol.com/CompNote/ Please Add Our Link to Your Homepage! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe, send a message to listserv@peach.ease.lsoft.com with the command in the body SUBSCRIBE COMPUNOTES-L Full Name. Example: SUBSCRIBE COMPUNOTES-L Patrick Grote To unsubscribe, send a message to listserv@peach.ease.lsoft.com with the command in the body SIGNOFF COMPUNOTES-L. Example: SIGNOFF COMPUNOTES- L. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SYSOPS READ HERE! Wanting to make CompuNotes available on as many BBS as possible, we can't afford to call everyone's BBS every week. What we would like to do is send those interested sysops a UUENCODED version for posting on their BBS. If you can volunteer to receive the UUENCODED version, turn it into a ZIP and upload it to your BBS, we'll list you in our sysops directory. If you are interested, fill out the following lines and send them back to notes@inlink.com with SYSOPS. We'll list your BBS in our SYSOPS LIST which will be included in each version of CompuNotes we ship out. If you have a WWW link we'll throw that up on our page. BBS NAME: BBS SYSOP: BBS NUMBER: URL: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Patrick's News Being The Publisher and Managing Editor Has Its Perks! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ho Ho Ho!| ---------- Whew, did the holidays seem to fly by this year? I've been pretty sick lately. So sick I missed a rare opportunity to meet with our Associate Editor, Doug Reed. Doug is from CT and I live in MO. He came in to visit his sister-in-law. I was so sick I couldn't get to meet with him. Ugh! Anyway, the holidays saw me get the best Christmas gift ever -- a dual TV/VCR combo. 20 inches! Barely fits in the office! This gift came from my wonderful wife Melissa the bargain hunter! As we are closing the year out I would like to thank two people who have made CompuNotes available all year long: Judy Litt and Doug Reed! Judy's a brilliant graphic artist who keeps our web site up and running! Her efforts go without notice by me from issue to issue but her impact is felt weekly! If you need anything in the way of graphics, please see Judy! mailto: jlitt@qualitty.com. Where do I begin to thank Doug Reed for everything he has done? Doug's been with us from the beginning. I originally met Doug through one of my better friends. Doug is his brother-in-law. As CyberNews became CompuNotes Doug began to expand his role. One day he asked if he could help in any way. As I was really devoting too much time to work, I asked if he would mind handling writer relations. Understanding handling the writers is tough! You have to make sure there are enough products to review, follow-up and make sure the reviews are completed and stroke the occasional ego! Past this Doug's grabbed the reigns of compiling a database of all the reviews we have ever done! How can I put into perspective the effort Doug has given to CompuNotes .. . . if it weren't for Doug CompuNotes wouldn't be here. Thanks Judy and Doug for all your hard work! ---------------- Next Week . . .| ---------------- We've picked a winner in the header contest! We'll start using it and sending out the issues 24K and less next week! Count on 2-3 CompuNotes a week, but smaller. -------------- No News . . .| -------------- We've decided to drop the news section of CompuNotes. We want to make more room for our upcoming web site review section. ------------------ WINNER IS . . . | ------------------ The software package being given away this week is The ASP Shareware Collection! Our winner is: keith.sterling@DIAL.PIPEX.COM Send them a congratulatory email! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Columnists' Corner - We bring you a different person each week! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Royal Flush by Jefferson Bushman The Future of Cyberbia I have been wondering about the future of computers -- both as stand- alone devices and as communication tools -- and share some of my musings (and solicit yours, of course). Before looking at the future, however, something of my personal past with regard to computing, since it may also reflect yours. I'm not old, but I'm old enough that I didn't grow up with them. My first computer wasn't a Commodore 64 or Vic-20. I never owned a Radio Shack TRS-80. My first computer was an office system, a Sanyo MBC- 1000. My Sanyo preceded, I think the Commodore 64. It certainly came before IBM desktop systems. As should be obvious, it didn't use MS-DOS as an operating system, but ran on something called CP/M. Those letters, as it happened, didn't stand for anything (as a sidelight, long after IBM had come out with their office machines another company called NBI began producing clones; NBI stood for Nothing But Initials), but the powerful 64K system allowed the user to do word processing and spread sheets. Later, programs were produced that allowed some limited database work. If I recall correctly, the word processor was called Word Master and it did everything most word processors do today, other than the font tricks that Windows and Mac-based systems can perform. The program allowed for creation of a mailing list and form letters using mail merge. Although at the time I wouldn't know a database from a picture tube, some of the things a user of that program was able to do were database functions. The spreadsheet program of choice was SuperCalc, which was widely seen as an improvement over the previously-popular program, VisiCalc. Again, it did most of what the earlier MS-DOS versions of Lotus were capable of. All of this, of course, was with one floppy drive which used double- sided single density 5 1/4" disks. They held up to the staggering amount of 180K of data. Later, for fun, I obtained a Commodore 64. It was enjoyable and it helped me learn Basic to some extent, but it was obvious that this wasn't the direction that computers were going to take. Realizing, when IBM-compatibles had become the tool of choice and that CP/M was a dinosaur operating system, I decided that I had to "get into" modern computers. I found a job selling computers and learned on the job. Despite almost a total ignorance about what I was doing, I made a sort of living. The education, however, was far more successful. On the other hand, that should scare you away from depending on the person who's selling computers, for accurate answers. I bought a used Epson XT from the store where I worked and have been using that machine's successors ever since. Like many people, I came to the Internet a couple of years ago. This walk down cyber-memory-lane would be of no significance were it not for its demonstration of how far all of us have come. The first computer I obtained (by the bye, I still possess all of my antiques) was around 1985. As mentioned, it was considered a fully- functional office system. It had 64K of RAM. Today, although there's obviously no limit, it's very common for many users to have 4 megabytes of RAM. Many have 8 or 16 meg. I don't know what the clock speed of my first machine was, since no one talked in those terms then, but my XT ran at a blazing 4.77 megahertz. Speeds of 30 times that are no longer unusual. My first monitor was possessed of ugly green letters on the screen. Monitors have gone through several evolutionary stages -- first the availability of amber, then CGA, EGA, VGA and SVGA. The combination of hardware and software have moved us from static letters and numbers to the point where we can have actual television on our monitors. We can have motion pictures, stereo sound and can make music. Of course, this doesn't even cover the full story of the evolution of the internet, with which most readers of this publication are familiar. What's next? No one really knows the answer to this of course, but if the present is a guide to the future, some things seem obvious. Paper catalogues will become a thing of the past. It is already true that many people will buy some or all of their holiday gifts on the 'net, this year. In the future, it will be difficult to justify getting into the car to go to a mall, wasting gasoline. Phone calls which will bypass long distance carriers will become a reality, rather than the clunky devices we have now, which -- among other things -- require both parties to initiate access at the same time. My own wish list includes a mechanism to make every writer a publisher who makes her/his writing available for a small fee over the 'net eliminating or limiting the need for large publishing houses and the needless destruction of trees. We will see a time when I can choose a Web-based physician or nutritionist whom I pay a fee on an annual basis, for the opportunity to communicate through our computers. The healer will diagnose and recommend or prescribe sending a message regarding my needs to a health food store or pharmacist, who will send the product to my home or office (which will likely be the same) by UPS or similar delivery service. My payment to the vendor will be likewise accomplished over the 'net. It's likewise easy to imagine similar situations with other professionals, i.e., attorneys, CPAs, etc. Similarly, we'll be able to get complete publications or those parts of it we want delivered to our e-mail boxes and we'll either read the paper on-screen or print the stories we want to save or take with us. Personally, I can hardly wait for the time that I can thus download the L.A. Times, Washington Post the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, minus sports sections (this will be easy with the Journal, of course) and most of the stock tables. To some extent, some of these things are available now, but some are not. As I said, I'd like to know what you think lies in our future in these areas. Let me know at MisterB@ThePentagon.com. I'll report on the more interesting insights I receive. As Criswell used to tell us, the future is very important since it's where all of us will spend the rest of our lives. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- REVIEWS OF THE WEEK | Interesting software/hardware you may need . . . ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Product: Concurrent Programming in Java by Doug Lea Reviewed By: Doug Reed MSRP: $39.76 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Concurrent programming is the art of constructing multi-tasking program code designed to speed the execution of your software. Doug Lea has written a superb manual explaining the concepts of threaded programs and how best to implement these concepts when programming in Java. When Java was designed, one of the features built into it was the inherent ability to be multi-threaded, but unless you understand the commands to use and, even more importantly, when and where to use them, you can easily get in over your head very quickly. Just to clarify for you novices out there like myself - concurrent programming is multi-tasking within the program itself - similar to, but different from the multi-tasking capabilities of your computer's CPU when running multiple software programs at the same time. I'm not going to pretend that I understand everything that Lea has written in this book about concurrent programming - far from it - but I do understand considerably more than I did before I started. My lack of understanding does not come from an inability to grasp what Lea is trying to say, on the contrary his style of writing is very clear and understandable. I still consider myself a novice in the area of Java programming, and prior to reading this book the thought of even designing a threaded program had not even crossed my mind. The concept I understand - allowing different parts of the program to execute during lag times, one portion of the code passing a value to another but not waiting for the result, these are relatively simple to grasp. When to use them though - that's the tough part. Lea takes a guiding hand and helps you through it. Chapter 1 introduces you to the topic of concurrent programming and briefly discusses the variety of topics covered by the later chapters. Lea lists and explains the various advantages and limitations of concurrent programming, as well as the numerous pitfalls that can betray you. Chapter 2 covers the area of Safety - insuring that concurrently working objects interact with each other appropriately and do not lead to random or dangerous behavior. Safe programming insures that nothing will happen instead of something bad happening. Chapter 3 balances Safety concerns with Liveness- the idea that anything will happen at all. Balancing these two concerns and tuning your program to address both issues is the single biggest headache in concurrent programming. Chapter 4 covers the topic of State-dependent Actions, i.e., the concept that for an action to be performed depends on the state of the object. Lea mentions that in an ideal design, all methods would not have state-based preconditions and would always fulfill their postconditions, however, this is usually possible. Chapter 5 covers Concurrency Control - the synchronization of the various concurrent aspects of the program and the controls over concurrency. Options for creating and invoking threads to perform services is the topic of chapter 6, while chapter 7 describes flow architecture for multi-threading activities. Finally, chapter 8 describes means to coordinate interactions between objects with concurrent programming. While by and large the text is clear and well written, it is by no means perfect. Examples of program code are provided, but they are no more than snippets of code. The book lacks actual full-fledged programs demonstrating what is explained in the text, a fairly major consideration for novices with little or no understanding behind when and where to use concurrent programming. Luckily, full versions of the examples in the text can be found on Sun's Java website (at http://java.sun.com/Series), including example applications and links to other sites containing related information. For Java programmers, this is another must-have from Addison-Wesley. Addison-Wesley One Jacob Way Reading, MA 01867 800-822-6339 http://www.aw.com/cp/javaseries Installation/Ease of Use: Silver User-Friendliness: Silver Quality: Gold User: Programmer (advanced) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Product: JavaScript: The Definitive Guide (Beta Edition) by David Flanagan Reviewed By: Doug Reed ---------------------------------------------------------------------- As should be evident by the name, David Flanagan's JavaScript: The Definitive Guide attempts to the complete resource for JavaScript programmers. JavaScript, for those who don't know, is the object- oriented scripting language built into version 2.0 and later of Netscape's very popular Navigator web browsers. JavaScript is not Java, although they do share some syntax in common. There are important differences, but the two languages were created for essentially the same purpose: to create an interactive experience on the World Wide Web. Flanagan has already gained fame for his book Java in a Nutshell, also published by O'Reilly. Java in a Nutshell was praised worldwide for its comprehensive coverage of Java methods and objects; JavaScript: The Definitive Guide attempts to do much the same thing for JavaScript. Not surprisingly, it succeeds. As you may recall, I gave a sneak peek of this book a few months ago. That was from viewing the on-line version (which is still available for purchase, and includes the hardcopy version). Now I've also read the print version, and believe me this book has plenty of dog-ears already. For JavaScript/website programmers, this book is a must- have. You may already have a book that taught you how to use JavaScript (I have Danny Goodman's excellent JavaScript Handbook), but this book goes far beyond simply teaching you the basics. As with Java in a Nutshell, a large portion of the book is a comprehensive listing of JavaScript's methods and objects, laid out and defined in such a way that you can easily find what you need. The reference portion of the book is simply invaluable to those who can already speak JavaScript. Even if you are already an expert, however, don't think that first half of this book doesn't have anything to teach you, because it does. JavaScript: The Definitive Guide starts very simply with an introduction to JavaScript, a brief history of the language and the purpose of the book, followed by a few quick and fun examples of JavaScript in action. In essence, it briefly touches on all of the topics covered by the book, including the fact that this covers the "beta" version of JavaScript. Yes, that's correct, the version of JavaScript included with Navigator 2.0 and included with all of the beta releases of Navigator 3.0 are beta version of the final JavaScript 1.0 due to be released with Navigator 3.0. This book covers the version of JavaScript that was used in Navigator 2.0 and up through 3.0b6. A later release of this book early next year will cover the full release of JavaScript. The book does talk about the differences anticipated in the final version, as well as including a chapter that lists the better known bugs currently found in JavaScript. A personal note - having played with the final version of Navigator 3.0 at work - a fair number of these bugs still exist. After the introduction, the book delves into the heart of programming with JavaScript. Chapter 2 deals with the lexical structure of the language, including case sensitivity and, comments, proper programming structure and "grammar", and selecting appropriate names for variables. Chapter 3 covers the various data types available in JavaScript and how to create and use variables in JavaScript. JavaScript is an untyped language, which means that variables do not have to be declared before using them and they can switch from one data type to another without using a conversion construct. Chapter 4 deals with Expressions and Operators, the heart of any language, while Chapter 5 completes the course by covering the use of Statements. Chapter 6 discusses for the first time the subjects of objects and arrays, describing how to create them and use them in JavaScript. This is followed by Chapter 7 which describes how to create and utilize methods and functions in JavaScript. To wrap up the section, Chapter 8 discusses the objects and methods already built into JavaScript. Client-side programming is the subject of Chapter 9, including methods to use to hide JavaScript from old browsers. Prior to the release of Navigator 3.0, all JavaScript was client-side (in other words, all code is loaded into the client's machine and then executed). Also included is a description of how to use JavaScript files or load JavaScript functions using URLs, followed by a discussion of the order of execution of the JavaScript code. I learned a fairly useful bit of information here. If you look at the source code of a JavaScript- containing webpage you will often see the JavaScript included in between the tags at the top of the document. This is for a very specific reason - code contained in the portion of the document is not executed until the entire document is loaded. This can be critical if the code must act upon information provided later in the document. Chapter 10 discusses the Window Object and all of the related sub- classes, properties, and methods, which is followed up in Chapter 11 by describing the JavaScript object hierarchy. Chapter 12 discusses LiveConnect, the ability of Java and JavaScript to interact with one another. This chapter in particular provided a wealth of information to me; I knew that Java and JavaScript could pass information back and forth to each other, but I didn't know that you could use JavaScript code to create a Java program on the fly (and vice versa). Finally, Chapters 13 and 14 wrap things up with a description of security in JavaScript and commonly encountered bugs, respectively. JavaScript: The Definitive Guide is a superb reference for all web programmers. I would also heartily recommend it to all wannabe web programmers- the "tutorial" portion of the book does a great job of outlining and explaining JavaScript programming, providing examples along the way to demonstrate how to use a particular concept or idea. JavaScript: The Definitive Guide is not quite as beginner-friendly as Goodman's JavaScript Handbook, but it have a longer shelf life than Goodman's book simply because it provides the very handy reference that will prove invaluable time and time again. However, there is the question of the "2nd edition" of the book early next year that will cover the full release of JavaScript. Besides having it now - if you really need it - the best reason for having the beta edition of this book is the differences between the beta and final version of JavaScript itself. Working with both versions, I have found that scripts that worked just fine in Navigator 2.0 won't work in 3.0, and vice versa. Navigator 3.0's version of JavaScript is less willing to let sloppy code slip by, and mistakes missed by 2.0 are often caught by 3.0. While many people are replacing their 2.0 versions with 3.0, Microsoft's Internet Explorer (version 3.0) uses the same version of JavaScript as Navigator 2.0. Microsoft has already announced that they won't update to JavaScript 1.0 until the release of Internet Explorer 4.0. So, there will continue to be a lot of people on the web using the "beta" version of JavaScript for at least the next year or so. To wrap it up - I think this book is definitely worth having. O'Reilly and Associates 103 Morris Street, Suite A Sebastopol, CA 95472 1-800-998-9938 http://www.ora.com Installation/Ease of Use: Gold User-Friendliness: Gold Quality: Gold Audience: Novice/Expert Programmers . +OK 25852 octets Received: from VMS.DC.LSOFT.COM (vms.dc.lsoft.com [206.241.12.2]) by mixer.visi.com (8.8.4/8.7.5) with ESMTP id HAA06649 for ; Sun, 29 Dec 1996 07:27:51 -0600 (CST) Received: from vms.dc.lsoft.com by VMS.DC.LSOFT.COM (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <2.31919262@VMS.DC.LSOFT.COM>; Sun, 29 Dec 1996 8:24:38 -0500 Received: from PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM by PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8c) with spool id 28729757 for COMPUNOTES-L@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM; Sun, 29 Dec 1996 08:24:24 -0500 Received: from administrator (pgrote.inlink.com [206.196.115.109]) by thor.inlink.com (8.8.0/V8) with SMTP id HAA15828 for ; Sun, 29 Dec 1996 07:24:20 -0600 (CST) Posted-Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 07:27:51 -0600 (CST) Received-Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 07:27:51 -0600 (CST) Priority: normal X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v2.42) Approved-By: "pgrote@inlink.com" Message-ID: <199612291324.HAA15828@thor.inlink.com> Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 07:23:21 +0000 Reply-To: pgrote@inlink.com Sender: "IBM Compatible Weekly Reviews, Interviews, and News - FREE!" Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "pgrote@inlink.com" Subject: CompuNotes #61 Part 2 To: COMPUNOTES-L@eva.dc.LSOFT.COM Content-Type: text ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Product: JASC Mediacenter Reviewed By: Judy Litt, jlitt@qualitty.com Reviewed on: 486DX2/50, 24 MB RAM Requires: 386 or higher, 16+ MHz, 8 MB RAM (16 recommended), 256 Color Display, Windows 3.1 or higher, DOS 5 or higher ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Mediacenter is from the same people who bring you Paintshop Pro. I have heard many raves about the shareware package Paintshop Pro; one of these days I'll have to check it out. According to JASC, Mediacenter "organizes your media files so that they are easier to find & use." In other words, it's image cataloging software. JASC Mediacenter is inexpensive and easy to use. The problem with image cataloging software, of course, is that it can't do all the work for you - it can' automatically put in keywords or comments, for instance. The idea behind it is great: you throw in a cd-rom. Mediacenter goes through the cd-rom, and creates thumbnail (small) images of all the graphics on that cd-rom. Once keywords are entered, you can just search on the word "cat" and the software presents you with thumbnails of all the files that contain the keyword "cat." So far, so good. Here's the gotcha: you have to go through those thumbnails and manually enter the keywords. Until our computers are smarter than we are - a scary thought for most people - a little user intervention is inevitable. And that's why I've reviewed numerous packages of image cataloging software. I get it, think "wow! nifty" - until I actually have to put in those keywords. And then, eventually, as I run out of hard drive space, the program gets deleted. Mediacenter was very easy to install. It automatically detected the fact that I am running Windows 95 and don't have a sound card. It's one of those few programs nowadays that comes on floppies, not a cd- rom. Mediacenter has all the normal bells and whistles of image cataloging software: it creates albums; allows you to convert, view, or print images; allows you to search and sort images; and allows you to open the file in the image editing program of your choice. Cataloging seemed quick, even on my 486DX2/50. 107 files (ok, they were small files - gif files for a web page) took one minute. The final size of this catalog was 572 KB; the files themselves occupy 12 MB. In fact, creating this catalog really saved my bacon. This customer called the next day, and wanted a new banner created for advertising. I could have found the elements I needed without the catalog I created - but it would have taken me much longer. The thumbnails, even at their smallest size, are recognizable. You can display albums on screens at 4 different sizes; you can only print them out at one size. A feature that allows you to print thumbnails at different sizes would be nice. You can display the following information about a file, by selecting its thumbnail and clicking the "info" button: Disk ID Directory File Size File Date File Type Version Compression Width and Height Bits/Plane Number of Planes Maximum Number of Colors Unpacked Size Unfortunately, there's no way to print any of this information. The only thing that prints is the file or thumbnail, and the file name. On the other hand, I had no trouble printing all of the thumbnails in an album. I've used other image cataloging programs where I couldn't print out all the thumbnails on one page to my color printer, due to memory constraints. You can print either the selected thumbnails, or the selected original files. If you select original file, that's what you get: the actual file, at the correct size. Although Mediacenter runs fine under Windows 95, it doesn't seem to be Win95 compliant: I found it annoying that right-clicking a thumbnail does nothing (how do those Mac people live without a right mouse button, anyway?). In fact, I'd try to right-click twice, which the program interpreted as double-clicking: this opens up the associated image editing program, a time consuming operation. Mediacenter can catalog and convert the following bitmap formats: bmp img pcx rle clp jpg pgm tga cut ibm pic tif dib mac png gif msp psd iff pbm ras psd is the native Photoshop format. Unfortunately, Mediacenter can't catalog multi-layered psd. The reason I usually save a file in psd format is so that I can have access to layers. Vector formats supported: cdr gem wpg cgm ngi drw pic dxf wmf This program is obviously not aimed at the graphic design/desktop publishing market, with the noticeable lack of support for ai or eps files. Sound formats supported: mid & wav Mediacenter supports the following animation formats: avi, flc, fli. I was able to create albums, add files, convert formats, print albums, and open files in an image editing program - all without cracking the manual. This gives you some idea of the ease-of-use of this program. The manual is a slim 112 pages, but it covers the program and covers it well. Instructions are clear and step-by-step. Being involved in the design of a software manual recently, I know that's not as easy as it looks! Conclusion Image cataloging software tends to be rather like backing up your hard drive: you know you should do it, but . . . It definitely saves time when you need to locate an image in a hurry, especially if it's a website with more than 100 photographs or a manual with lots of screen captures. To make this software really useful, though, you need to spend time adding keywords. I'd like to see some support for right clicking, & the ability to modify how catalogs print out, but to my mind these are minor quibbles. JASC Mediacenter does just about everything I need done in image cataloging software, and it does it quickly and easily. JASC, Inc. 5610 Rowland Road Suite 125 Minnetonka, MN 55343 612-930-9171 CompuServe: Go JASC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Product: Normality Reviewed by: Michael Gallo Requires: 486-66, 8MB RAM, 7MB HD, CD-ROM, Mouse, Sound Card Reviewed on: Pentium-100, 16MB RAM, 4X-CD ROM, Windows 95 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- What do you get when Generation X collides with adventure gaming? You get Normality. This game from Interplay places our hero Kent Knutson, a free-thinking, grunge looking, wise cracking punk in the middle of Neutropolis, a city overrun by an overzealous Orwellian furniture maker. Neutropolis is a dark and dull city. The sun never shines, not since the "great shake-up". The object of the game is to discover the truth about the function of little "gizmos" hidden in the furniture of all citizens of Neutropolis. Ken begins his adventure in his apartment which looks like a college dorm room from hell. Along the way Kent will battle wits with Norm police, who are there to ensure that citizens conform and act "normal". The game has two modes of installation. If you're running under Windows 95, an autorun routine should bring up the installation program. DOS and WIN 3.1 users must run the install program themselves. Although the game requires a minimum, of 7 megs of hard disk space, the maximum install, which requires 50+ megs of space will allow for smoother transitions between scenes. Normality's gameplay is a simple point and click interface (like Myst). One of the interesting interfaces in the game is Ken's Voodoo doll. Right clicking the mouse on a game character or an item will bring up the voodoo doll. From here, the player can order Ken to do something by clicking a different part of the doll. Click the eyes to look at something, click the mouth to speak, click the right hand to do something, and click left hand to pick up something. I thought that was an original idea. No typing of any kind is required in the game for dialogue with other characters. All dialogue takes place automatically. I did find this feature a bit irritating at times, because Kent had to return to some spots several times. That meant listening to the dialogue again and again. Although the dialogue is automated, the game allows players to choose Kent's responses from a list of choices. However, the order of the list is insignificant. There is no right or wrong choice. In fact, the player's choice really has no consequences at all. You won't tee off a computer character and cause them to hack you to death or something if a wrong answer is chosen. The main purpose of the dialogue is to get information to help Kent along in the game. In fact, the game is set up so that you cannot make a mistake that would lead Kent to a dead-end. All objects (as far as I could discern) have only one purpose. You cannot use them for another, thus wasting the item if you used it incorrectly. At one point in the game, I had built up Kent's inventory of items only to have it confiscated by the Norm troopers. After escaping from the blue pens prison, I was able to go back to sites I visited and (magically) the items were there for Kent to pick up again. The game does have some clever uses for the items though. Many of the items must be combined with a second item in order to proceed in the game. Some of these combinations are not apparent at first, so that does make it a challenge. As Kent progresses in the game, a map can be used to instantly get to other part of the city. This came in handy when I had to go back to Kent's apartment to pick up an item to prevent the frozen food from thawing. As far a graphics go, there is nothing earth-shattering to report. Each time a major task is completed, like escaping from Ken's Hell- hole apartment, the game presented a little animated scene. The animated sequences have a much higher graphics quality than the normal gameplay. Ken himself, looks like a rendered CAD figure. It looks very cool. The graphics in the normal (no pun intended) part of the game are OK. At least things look like they should. I would say the graphics have a "cartoon" quality. The graphics engine handled movement very smoothly. Like many CD-ROM games being sold today, Interplay has also included some demos of their other products. My CD-ROM included demo versions of Descent II, Whiplash, and Shattered Steel. This is a good use for CD-ROM since many games do not use up all 660 megs of space on them. It makes for very inexpensive marketing. Overall, I'd say that Normality would appeal to a younger audience, say 10 - 12 years of age. It's not that an adult couldn't have fun playing this game, but there is just not enough challenge. Like many other type of adventure games, once you've played it, there is no reason to play again. I believe that games like Normality will be the first to benefit from being distributed over the Internet. I give Normality a Bronze medal. Interplay Productions 16815 Von Karman Ave. Irvine, CA 92606 Internet E-mail: Mailto: Info@Interplay.com Web Site: American On-Line: Keyword INTERPLAY or E-mail IPTECH CompuServe: GO GAMEPUB or E-mail 76702,1342 Genie: Type M805;1 or go to the Bulletin Board in Scorpia's area Prodigy: Use the Web browser to our Web Site or E-mail PLAY99B FTP Site: ftp.interplay.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Product: Mighty Math Number Heroes Reviewed by: Danny Williams Reviewed on: Pentium 75, 16 MB RAM, Win95, 4x CD-ROM, Sound Blaster Requires: child(ren) ages 8-10 and... For Windows:486-33, Windows 3.1 or 95, 5Mb Disk, 8Mb RAM, 2x CD-ROM, Sound card For Macintosh: System 7.0.1, 68040, 68030 or PowerPC, 8Mb RAM, 4100K Unused, 13" monitor, 256 or more colors, 2x CD-ROM MSRP: $39.99 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Mighty Math Number Heroes (MMNH) is four math teaching programs presented in a cartoon/game format: three games teach fractions, geometry, probability respectively, and the fourth touches on several subjects including the four basic operations (+ - * /), pattern recognition, and identifying shapes. I remember first learning fractions when I was in elementary school. I also remember watching cartoons from then until, well, OK - last Saturday. I certainly don't remember doing them together, though. Mom said I couldn't concentrate and learn anything that way. Turns out she was wrong. While I was taught these things by grinding through page after mimeographed page of dry, repetitive math problems, children now can be introduced to and practice math concepts in ways like this program that pique interest and hold attention much better than the paper-and-pencil method. Perhaps our children can grow up not even knowing that familiar mimeo- aroma. MMNH installs easily with the SETUP program on the CD-ROM. Although there is no install option for running the program from a hard drive for better performance, I found acceptable performance with a 4x CD- ROM drive. On my system it put less than 2Mb on the hard disk, the rest runs from the CD-ROM. Although there is no uninstall program provided, the Windows95 Add/Delete Programs was able to do so successfully. Lest you get the wrong idea, the only reason I uninstalled the program was for this review. After I saw that the uninstall worked, I immediately reinstalled the program. My in-house juvenile programming tester (my 4 year old daughter, Heather) would have cried all over the keyboard if she could no longer play her math games. This CD-ROM is definitely a keeper. MMNH starts with title page offering a couple of other choices besides starting the game. There is a "Talking Head" movie of Donna Stanger, Executive Producer, explaining the design criteria and teaching methodologies used in the games. This sounds dry and boring, but is actually quite interesting and shows how much thought and planning went into the design of these games and how they were written to be effective teaching tools. There is also a splash screen advertising their web page at http://www.edmark.com and a flashy multimedia slideshow/demo/advertising section for other Edmark educational programs. ...and, of course, a big green PLAY button that gets to the meat of things! PLAY starts an opening sequence showing the murky skyline of a Gotham- type city at dusk, some driving theme music, and a deep, rich, announcer's voice: Nighttime in the city that never sleeps. What's that in the sky? The math symbols! that means someone's calling the Might Math Number Heroes! Then each of the four cartoon characters, representing the four games, swoops to the foreground. Clicking on a character launches the game. They are: FRACTION MAN'S FRACTION FIREWORKS In the easier levels, Fraction Man asks the student to adjust the numerator of a fraction to build fireworks ("Can you make a fraction firework that's 1/2 red?"), then push a red button to watch the fireworks go. The questions move up to selecting the larger or smaller of two fractions, then to harder topics like doing math with the fractions and converting decimals, always building the answer into fireworks then watching them go. GEOMETRY EMERGENCY DETECTIVES WITH THE GEO-COMPUTER A detective computer is wandering the city and seems to need a great deal of help with geometry. He radios in the questions, which are then displayed on the Geo-computer, a 10x10 grid of dots which can be connected to draw geometric shapes. Easy questions are like "Pick the shapes with 3 sides and 3 angles." Hard ones are "Draw a shape with a perimeter of 16 units" or "pick the shapes with a line of symmetry." HANDSOME CHANCE'S PROBABILITY MACHINE Handsome Chance is a rather vain super hero who has a toy making machine which only makes action figures of himself. We use a spinner to select the color and accessories on each toy, and answer questions about how the toys are to be built. The machine can be used to help see the answer - for example, he question might show a spinner with 2 red thirds and a blue third and ask which color is more likely to be spun. Running the machine makes the toys according to the spinner and shows a graph of the results. For an easy question, we are shown a spinner with a purple half and a brown half and asked if it is possible for this spinner to select brown. Harder questions show two spinners and ask about a combined probability using both spinners. QUIZZO WITH STAR BRILLIANT Star Brilliant is the host of a "Jeopardy" style game show named Quizzo. Two students can play against each other or one student can play against a cartoon opponent. This game has the widest range of questions - from simple single digit addition and subtraction to longish division (745/17) . There are also analogies using simple geometric shapes, and sequencing (they call it "pattern matching"). Another category is called "Numbers." From a collection of 903, 913, 901, 893; select the one that is greater than 900, between 900 and 905, and is the answer when subtracting 50 from 953. There are 26 different categories, most using variations on these. All of the games have a "difficulty slider." This slider starts at level A (easy) and as questions are answered correctly, slowly slides its way up to level Z (hard). The slider can also be moved manually. There is also a calculator available, although I wished it could be disabled for some of the operator questions - it is just too easy to pull up the calculator to get an answer rather than working it out. Then again, I suppose a determined lazybones could always pull up the Windows calculator anyway. All the games except Quizzo also have an "explore" button with which the fun parts of the game - shooting fireworks, drawing geometric figures, and running the toymaking machine - can be done without answering the questions. Heather and I have only one big problem with these games - the controls buttons, such as those for exiting the game, changing the difficulty level, or using the calculator were inactive much of the time. It seems that we had to wait until the program was waiting for input from us ("Player one - what is your answer?") before those controls became active. Clicking on them before that was a useless and frustrating, particularly for Heather who didn't quite understand why it wouldn't pay attention to her. I guess she's yet to learn that little rule of life that computers sometimes just don't do what we want them to do. Despite this idiosyncrasy she continues to ask for the CD-ROM and enjoy all the games. Although the publishers recommend this CD-ROM for ages 8-10, I've found my preschool age daughter loves it at the lower difficulty levels, and is learning things that I'd not have though to introduce to her for a couple of years yet. The difficulty levels adjust to such a wide range that this CD-ROM should have a long useful life in just about any family with kids. Edmark P O Box 97021 Redmond, WA 98073-9721 (800) 320-8379 WWW: Mailto: edmarkteam@edmark.com AOL Keyword: "Edmark" Installation/Ease of Use: Gold User-Friendliness: Silver Quality: Gold User: Novice ----------------------------------------------------------------------- WEBSITES OF THE WEEK! | This section is devoted to cool WebSites . . . ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Free Internet Faxing . . .| --------------------------- MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., PRNewswire/ - Clarity Software, Inc. is revolutionizing faxing by making it possible for users of MagicFax, its groundbreaking software for the World Wide Web, to send faxes anywhere in the world for free. 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