Copyright: Copyright ® 1992 Windows OnLine.
Citation: All rights reserved, Copyright ® 1992 Windows OnLine.


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Index Page

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  Interesting Computer News,  by Randy Wong

  New Product News,  by Rich Young

   Networking Windows,  by Darrell Poteet

How Do I Network Thee?

  Zsoft Ultrafax,  by Scott Drassinower

  Logitech ScanMan Color,  by Randy Wong

  Mannequin Designer,  by Bob Gollihur

  Excel 4 for Windows the Complete Reference

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Excel Trade Secrets for Windows

by Frank Mahaney

  Orator 1.12,  by Rich Young

  WinGrin,  by Bob Gollihur

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Interesting_Computer_News
Lotus Development Corp. has added some new features to its Freelance presentation graphic package. Lotus Freelance for Windows version 2.0 will now have multimedia capabilities. Besides the audio and video capabilities, version 2.0 will support TrueType fonts, 24 bit color, and Object Linking and Embedding (OLE). Business presentations can include audio sound, video clips and animations to their presentations. Adding audio sounds, Freelance for Windows is now one step ahead of its competitors, such as Microsoft's PowerPoint and Harvard Graphics for Windows. Lotus has also built-in to Freelance their SmartPics clip-art library. The only thing that's missing is their Multimedia SmartHelp. Freelance for Windows 2.0 will be shipping by the end of the year and is priced at $495.

XTree Co. has announced an upgrade for their file management utility for Windows. XTree for Windows version 1.5 will sport a new custom tool bar and have improved features to bring the product up to par with other Windows file managers, such as Norton Desktop for Windows. New features are enhanced scripting, drag and drop capabilities, and support for Microsoft's Windows for Workgroups. The Windows Notepad will now be the default editor, but will also be configurable. Users will be able to view, edit, and print files. XTree for Windows version 1.5 is scheduled for release in February 1993 and will be priced at $99. Upgrade prices have not yet been determined.

Logitech Inc. has released CatchWord Pro for Windows. CatchWord Pro is an Optical Character Reader (OCR) software package for almost any hand-held or flatbed scanner. CatchWord Pro is TWAIN-compliant, which permits scanned graphic files by any TWAIN compliant flatbed or hand-held scanner to be recognized and converted to text files. CatchWord Pro will convert scanned text into a format that can be used by word processors, databases, spreadsheets, and desktop publishing applications. CatchWord Pro has a vertical and horizontal full page merging composition. Special OCR text editing tools are one of its features. CatchWord Pro for Windows is priced at $300.

Microsoft has announced the Microsoft Hewlett Packard Font Set. The font set is a collection of 35 TrueType fonts designed to upgrade any HP LaserJet, DeskJet, or PaintJet with the TrueType fonts that are resident in the new Hewlett Packard LaserJet Series 4 printer. These are high quality TrueType fonts for both the screen and printer. The package will include a new printer driver that will improve print speeds, which in turn will shorten the return to application time. A Flying Font screen saver is also included. The Microsoft Hewlett Packard Font Set is priced at $69.95.

There are two new color printers arriving on the market. Hewlett Packard has announced the HP PaintJet XL300 Postscript color printer. Lexmark International Inc. has announced the IBM Color Jetprinter PS 4079 printer. The HP PaintJet weights in at 45 pounds with a maximum print resolution of 300x300 dots per inch (dpi). The IBM Color Jetprinter weights in at 22 pounds with a maximum resolution of 360x360 dpi. The HP PaintJet's standard paper tray holds 200 pages, while the IBM Jetprinter holds only 100 pages. Both printers support the standard parallel and the LocalTalk ports. The HP PaintJet has the advantage with the support of more Printer Languages. The Hp PaintJet supports color PCL5, HP-GL/2, and Adobe Postscript Level 2. The IBM Jetprinter supports HP-GL and Postscript Level 1. The price for the HP PaintJet XL300 is $4,995. The price for the IBM Color Jetprinter is $3,495. If you want to print quality color pages, both printers will do nicely.

Touchstone Software Corp. has released its first in a series of three PC software diagnostic tools. CheckIt Pro: SysInfo will assist in describing your hardware, software, and system setup information. This is the first product and is the base of the product line, and it is shipping now. CheckIt Pro: Tests and Tools will be shipping next month. This product will perform detailed testing on your hardware, plus it will also perform low-level formatting on your hard drive. The third product would be the CheckIt Pro: Analysis. This set of tools will analyze your machine's performance and detect erroneous configuration setups. This last product will appear sometime in February 1993.

Macromedia Inc. is upgrading their Action multimedia presentation tool. Macromedia Action version 2.5 will support Microsoft's Video for Windows extensions and Apple's QuickTime for Windows. Action will also support the Intel Digital Video Interactive (DVI) compression and playback technology. This version will work with Media Vision's ProMovie Spectrum and Creative Lab's VideoBlaster video cards. Macromedia Action 2.5 is priced at $495, but registered users of version 2.0 can upgrade for free until January 31. Owners of version 1.0 can upgrade to version 2.5 for $79.

Announced earlier this year, Archive Corp. and Microsoft were going to develop an entry-level LAN backup application for Windows NT. At the same time, Archive Corp. also announced that they will ship a full feature standalone backup application for LANs under Windows NT. Now, Archive and Microsoft have announced plans for a backup application for enterprise networks. This backup product will is designed to run on Microsoft's Windows NT and Windows Open Service Architecture. Archive will sell the product under the name Archive Information Manager for Windows NT. The product is not expected until next year, and no set price has been attached.

RenaSonce Group, Inc. has released an enhanced version of their application troubleshooter. Skylight version 2.5 includes multimedia testing devices, tuning and optimization, graphical disk usage, and customization of startup screens. There is also a special editor for editing the Win.Ini, System.Ini, Config.Sys, and Autoexec.Bat files. Skylight for Windows is priced at $99.95.

Borland International is accusing Symantec of stealing trade secrets. Symantec is now firing back at Borland, for trying to smear Symantec's reputation. This has been driving Symantec's stocks downhill. Eugene Wang is accused of taking valuable information when he and his secretary left Borland to join up with Symantec. Symantec is now stating that Wang's secretary, Lynn Georganes, was acting on Borland's behalf, not Symantec's, when she defied a court order and tried to remove competitive data from a Borland office after resigning.

Rational Data Systems, Inc. (RDS) has announced VoiceOver. This software will allow users of WordPerfect (DOS version) 5.1 to attach a comment in their own voice to documents. VoiceOver lets the user record sounds which will be stored within the WordPerfect document itself. Voice annotations will appear to users as standard WordPerfect comments. The comment will include the author's name, date and time of creation, and the length of the message. Since this is a voice comment, any language is supported. The digitized sound is compressed and decompressed invisibly with VoiceOver. The compression algorithm is based on the Intel DVI ADPCM for audio compression. VoiceOver is shipping now at an introductory price of $49.00 until January 1, 1993. The regular retail price is $129. for a single user license.

Fifth Generation Systems announced the Untouchable Network NLM. This is an anti-virus software for Novell LANs. The NetWare Loadable Module (NLM) will detect and recover from any known and unknown viruses. The installation will be for NetWare 3.11 and higher file servers. This product will be available at the end of December 1992. The price will be $995.

Sigma Design is entering the Windows marketing area with their newest product, WinStorm. This is the first Windows accelerated video card with a professional 16 bit CD quality stereo sound. WinStorm will be delivering two of the requirements for upgrading your equipment to being a MPC computer, True Color video and CD quality sound. The 16 bit CD quality stereo sound capability is based on the Media Vision multimedia chip set. WinStorm includes interfaces for high performance SCSI CD-ROM devices, a standard IBM joystick, and a full duplex Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI). WinStorm is priced at $429.

Prodigy and Microsoft Corp. are working on convincing cable TV companies to carry Prodigy data over their cable networks. The two companies have been attending cable conferences, such as the Western Cable Television conference, to demonstrate their ideas and plans. Prodigy has been using a version of the Jerrold cable system for the demonstrations. Once refined, Prodigy will be using the Jerrold cable system to transmit Prodigy data over the 1 Mbps cable TV lines. They would like to see this plan implemented in early 1994.

Telebit Corp. is offering a cash rebate for buying their modem. A $75.00 rebate for every T3000 V.32bis modem that a user buys, directly from the company. You will also receive a free software upgrade for the faxing software included. The upgrade will allow the modem to transmit Facsimile data at speeds up to 9.6 kilobits per second. This rebate is offered up to December 28, 1992.


PopUp_Randy_News


New_Products_News

by Rich Young

Logitech AudioMan

Logitech Inc., has announced AudioMan, a compact digital audio tool for the Windows 3.1 environment. The product should be available this month at a list price of $179.

AudioMan is an external audio device with an integrated speaker and microphone. It attaches to any IBM PC or compatible via the parallel port, allowing it to produce audio (voice, sound, and music) within a sound-compatible application. The product uses Object Linking and Embedding (OLE), a cross-document interface standard that many Windows applications have adopted. OLE allows users to integrate a variety of data formats (i.e., graphics, sound, and text) from diverse sources within a single document.

AudioMan is the first peripheral device which integrates a speaker, a uni-directional microphone, and a board into one external unit. Since it plugs directly into the parallel port of any desktop, laptop, or notebook machine, it is extremely versatile. In addition, Logitech has designed a special "pass-through" connection for the parallel port, enabling a printer to be plugged in and used at the same time.

AudioMan's ergonomic shape is compact and easy to handle, yet the product also incorporates industrial-strength materials in its design to withstand the rigors of business travel. It can be used hands-free on the desk, or hand-held.

AudioMan makes sound a practical business tool by enabling users to easily add verbal notes to their work, rather than written ones. For example, a person working on a spreadsheet who has a question about a total can simply add a voice note to the cell containing that total. When someone else selects the same cell, the message is played back. AudioMan records not only voice, but sounds from other sources, such as tapes and CDs via the audio input port. Also, an output port allows the connection of headphones. AudioMan is powered by standard "AA" batteries or by AC.

Logitech's software driver is easy to install and features a control panel that detects battery level and allows adjustment of output volume. AudioMan takes advantage of the recording and playback capabilities included in Windows 3.1 to produce quality sound in any Windows OLE application. AudioMan will work with any Windows software supporting sound using .WAV files.

AudioMan requires an IBM AT or compatible system with 286, 386 or higher processor, PC or MS-DOS version 3.3 or later, Microsoft Windows 3.1, and one parallel port.

For more information contact:

Logitech Inc.

6505 Kaiser Drive

Fremont, CA 94555

(510) 795-8500

(510) 792-8901 FAX

Microsoft TrueType Font Pack 2

Microsoft Corporation has announced the Microsoft TrueType Font Pack 2, the latest addition to the TrueType font product family. The Font Pack 2 comes with 44 new TrueType fonts and the new Font Assistant application to organize and keep track of all TrueType fonts. The Microsoft TrueType Font Pack 2 is the logical companion to the original Microsoft TrueType Font Pack for Windows, providing an array of decorative and headline fonts, as well as new text and symbol fonts.

The fonts in the TrueType Font Pack 2 were developed by such respected font vendors as Bigelow & Holmes, Briem, Carter & Cone, Filmotype, Font Bureau, Linotype, Monotype and URW. This Font Pack includes a number of entirely new faces, including the exciting display family Elephant from Matthew Carter, the designer of Galliard and many other faces. It also includes fonts that have never previously appeared in any digital form, such as Elephant and Italic, Gradl, Ransom, Harrington, Augsburg Initials.

The Microsoft TrueType Font Pack 2 includes the brand new Font Assistant application, which allows the user to view all the TrueType fonts loaded on their systems quickly and easily, then sort and organize the fonts into custom groups. The Font Assistant works with all the TrueType fonts, allowing the user to sort the fonts by user-specified criteria - alphabetically or by similarity; serif style or by width - and group the fonts by font category or use. The Font Pack 2 comes with several helpful pre-made groups, such as headline, business letters, personal letters and symbol, and allows for custom groups. For instance, a user could organize the headline, text and symbol fonts used for a regularly published newsletter into a group titled Newsletter. To decide which font to use, the user can also review historical and useful information on selected fonts and print font samples.

As with all TrueType fonts, the high-quality outline fonts in the Microsoft TrueType Font Pack 2 provide superior type, at any size, that work with all applications, displays and printers supported by the Microsoft Windows operating system. And because the same font is used for both screen and printer, TrueType always provides true "what you see is what you get" (WYSIWYG). The Microsoft TrueType Font Pack 2 installs in one easy step, and includes the fun and useful Flying Fonts screen saver introduced in the Microsoft Hewlett-Packard Font Set.

The Microsoft TrueType Font Pack 2 carries a suggested retail price of $69.95 and should be available now. For further information contact:

Microsoft Corporation

One Microsoft Way

Redmond, WA

(206) 882-8080

Brought to you by

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  Rich Young
  Staff Writer
  Windows OnLine


Rich Sig


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Networking_Windows

How Do I Network Thee ?

In past columns I've covered some fairly specific challenges to networking Windows. This issue we'll take a break from the heavy stuff while I answer some of the most commonly asked question on the subject.

Learning to Share

  Every now and then my users get the error message "Sharing Violation on Drive x" where x can be any drive, even one they don't have! We're using a network installation of Windows and users load SHARE.EXE to supposedly eliminate this problem. What's going on?

  Yes, SHARE.EXE handles this problem, except for the Windows files. When you're running a network copy of Windows, the files in the Windows directory must be flagged READ ONLY. The problem is hard to diagnose since the share command has a peculiar "feature" of reporting any drive except the one involved.

Off the Beaten Path

  Since our users search paths have become so long, we've started eliminating the Windows directory itself from the path statement. We simply do a change directory to it before typing WIN and everything works fine. All the documentation says Windows needs to be on the path however. Are we missing something?

  You've discovered WINDIR, an environment variable that is created when Windows starts. WINDIR takes its value from the directory Windows is started from and most Windows programs reference it to find the Windows files. It's that most that will be your downfall. Some applications will put files in your Windows directory expecting it to be on the path. When that app looks to find a DLL or other file it won't find it and may GPF your system. Go by the book on this one and put Windows early in your path.

First Things First

  I'd like my users to have the option of logging in to the network any time they want to, either before or after they start Windows. So far I've been unable to figure out how to do this. What's the trick?

  No trick to it. It just can't be done. You must log on prior to running Windows or it won't recognize your network. Microsoft calls this a "security feature", designed to keep users from accessing the network illegally. What we really need is a Windows facility for secured log ins but so far Microsoft isn't responding.

The Right Stuff

  I've just upgraded to Windows 3.1 and I'm having a problem getting some of my workstations to access the network. I'm using the same IPX and EMSNET that worked with 3.0. What's the difference in 3.1?

  Microsoft and Novell teamed up to create new version of both shell components for the 3.1 release. The new versions are shipped with Windows 3.1. IPX.COM is version 3.10 and NETX.COM is 3.26a. Older versions should at least work minimally. The real problem you're having here is an incompatibility with EMSNETX. Windows no longer supports this version. If you need to load the shell high, you'll have to use EMM386.EXE or a third party memory manager.

Tell Me True (Type)

  True Type fonts are one of the best features of Windows 3.1 and from the amount of disk space my users are taking up with them, they must agree. Since most users are working with the same fonts can't I put one copy on a server for all to use and free up those local hard drives? I've tried copying a standard set to the server and deleting them from the hard drive but now no one can find them in though they're on the search path. Do they have to be local?

  No, but installing them on the network can be a little tricky. True Type fonts have two components: the actual font designated *.TTF and a pointer file carrying an .FOT extension. The pointer file is the key. If you'll first have your users delete their fonts through the Control Panel Fonts section, you can reinstall your network copies by browsing to the directory you've copied them to. Once this is done the pointer file references the shared directory. Of course you'll need to make sure that drive mapping remains constant. This process will leave just the relatively small *.FOT files in the users WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory.

If local disk space is real problem and you have lots of fonts, you can even put the *.FOT files on the network. Just copy them to the desired directory then edit the font section of the WIN.INI. An original entry should looked something like this:

[fonts]

Lucida Sans Regular (TrueType)=C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\LSANS.FOT

Your modified entry should reflect the network directory holding the font pointer:

[fonts]

Lucida Sans Regular (TrueType)=F:\USERS\DJONES\LSANS.FOT

Since the user won't be able to access fonts if the network is down it might be a good idea to copy at least a couple of the most common fonts to the local hard drive.

The Curse of the LaserWriter

  I just installed a new HP LaserJet IIISi with the PostScript option on the network, but no matter what I do it keeps coming up as an Apple LaserWriter in the Print Manager. I've put all my printer drivers in a shared directory on the search path and I'm using the right WPD file for the IIISi. I know this is correct since Windows is finding the PSCRIPT.DRV, so what's the problem?

  There is an anomaly (that's Microsoft for bug) in PSCRIPT.DRV that causes it to look only the WINDOWS\SYSTEM (or shared Windows directory for network installs) for the printer's *.WPD file. This means, unless you're running off a network shared copy of Windows you'll have to copy all *.WPD files to the user's local hard drive.

Let's Get Real

  I've heard how great Microsoft Windows is, so now I'm ready to make the jump. Our network has about 40 stations most of which are 286 systems with a few 386SX/16 machines for the power user. The 286s have a meg of ram but the 386s have between 2 and 4 meg. Most of our users work with DOS apps; WordPerfect and Lotus 123 so we're interested in the environment primarily for multitasking. Should we run a shared copy of Windows or load it on the local hard drives? All machines have 40 meg drives.

  At this point the type of Windows installation to use shouldn't be your main concern. I'm one of the worlds biggest Windows advocates but I'm also a realist. The operating system is hardware intensive and the fact is most of your machines don't have the hardware to make it worth your while. The SX systems with 4 meg are actually the only units that would drive the environment satisfactorily. If your users will continue to run DOS apps, Windows really has little to offer under your current situation. I'd recommend making Windows available to your power users and using that exposure to see if the environment offers you enough to justify the hardware upgrades you'll need.

The Last Word...

Well, I hope I've cleared up at least one problem area for you. If so, think of it as my holiday gift to you. If you're still playing Sherlock Holmes with an elusive Windows problem that's causing your network users to think you're an incarnation of Ebinezer Scrooge, don't forget your resources. Microsoft technical support has at least begun to acknowledge the existence of networks and their reps will research any problem you present. Your network vendor is a good source too, since Microsoft worked fairly closely with the companies whose networks Windows 3.1 supports. Finally there's my favorite tool, the Window Resource Kit. It's cheap, it's heavy, and hey it's the holidays. You deserve something nice.

If you're wondering how the new Windows for Workgroups could affect your current setup of Windows, you'll want to check out the next installment of Networking Windows. I'll have details on how to integrate the environment without losing control of your network.

Exsqueeze Me ?

If you have a question you feel might affect other network users as well, address it to me and I'll try to answer it here in the REVIEW. You can reach me by leaving a message on Windows Online or via CompuServe.


CompuServe

I can be reached on CompuServe via Account # 75300,3655.


Ultrafax
As more PC users start to discover the advantages of using a fax board, a new generation of fax software is going to have to provide users with an easy, efficient way to send, receive, and manipulate faxes. ZSoft's UltraFax will probably lead the way in this new generation.

UltraFax provides an extensive array of features, such as OCR, file transfers, and the ability to either draw on, type on, or erase part of a received fax, and to then send that fax out to another person. This lets you easily annotate your thought or ideas, without having to take the curled-up thermal fax paper, wait in line at the copier, make your changes, and then re-fax the document.

UltraFax's interface is heavily drag-and-drop oriented, although a mouse is not required. It has a single, non-customizable toolbar that runs the length of the screen. The toolbar can be used by clicking on the desired button, or hitting Alt and the underlined letter.

A common drag-and-drop operation to send a quick note to someone would involve selecting your cover sheet, then drag-and-drop it onto the Out Box. UltraFax will ask you to which person(s) you would like the fax sent, at what time, and that data fields (name, phone number, fax number, department, etc.) you would like put on the cover sheet. UltraFax comes with 12 cover sheets, including ones for sending confidential faxes, congratulations, and international faxes. You can easily modify any of these cover sheets, or create your own from scratch.

UltraFax's send and receive logs provide information on the type of fax sent (a regular fax, a CAS file transfer, an UltraFax transmission, or a group transmission), the date and time it was scheduled to go out, to who the fax is going, the document name, and the current status of the fax. Double clicking on any fax will give you some more information, and the option of re-sending the fax now or at a later date.

One of UltraFax's powerful features is its OCR capabilities. It will turn any received fax that has text in it into an ASCII file. The OCR operation went rather quickly, but you cannot export directly into a specific file format, only straight ASCII. Unrecognizable characters can be marked with any symbol. There is no way to make the OCR operation perform in the background.

UltraFax offers extensive image-editing options. It will clean up "dirty" faxes (remove unwanted spots and marks), and perform anti-aliasing to remove jagged edges and smooth out the image. You can zoom in on the entire fax, just a selected region, or view the entire fax as thumbnail images. You can stick an electronic Post-It note on a fax to direct attention to a certain area, draw borders around a page, or circle an item. UltraFax will let you copy a part of the fax to the clipboard so you can paste it into another application. You can even scan your signature, and place it on a fax. This makes it easy to fill out a form without even having to print it out. You can type in answers to fill-in questions, circle or box choices, and drop your signature at the bottom of the form, and not even have to pick up a pen or pencil.

Scanner support is extensive. UltraFax supports over 60 scanners, ranging from hand-held, to page, to flat bed. Some scanners will require a small TSR to be loaded in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. UltraFax has pre-defined settings for scanning normal paper, newspaper, glossy magazines, and photographs. You can also manually adjust the contrast and brightness.

UltraFax has very flexible phone book options. You can create individuals to send faxes, or broadcast faxes to a group of people. Each individual can be setup as a normal fax transmission, a CAS file transfer (if the sender and the receiver both have a CAS compliant fax card), or an UltraFax transmission (if the sender and receiver both have a fax card and are using UltraFax). You can also assign a brief comment for each individual or group.

Upon receiving new faxes, UltraFax will pop-up a box telling you how many new faxes have been received since the box was last cleared, and will give you the option of either clearing the box, or viewing the faxes. You can also have new faxes automatically sent to the printer.

One very important feature that is overlooked in most programs is the quality of the on-line help. Some people like to sit down with the manual and read it, but most people would rather ask for help only when they need it. UltraFax's on-line help is very in-depth, and includes an excellent glossary of fax related terms. Don't know what CAS is?  What on earth would my thumbnail have to do with viewing a fax?  Just look it up in the UltraFax Glossary.

UltraFax works with a wide variety of fax boards, including those from Adtech, Boca, Cardinal, Hayes, Intel, Practical Peripherals, Prometheus, US Robotics, and Zoom.

Overall, UltraFax is an excellent fax package. It is very powerful, takes up very little disk space, and will probably be the only fax program you will ever need. And at US$119., it is a hard deal to turn down.

UltraFax Product Information

Scott Drassinower

WinOnLine Review


About UltraFax

UltraFax

US$119 List Price

ZSoft Corporation

450 Franklin Road, #100

Marietta, GA 30067

(800)444-4780


About Scott

      15 Lake Street

White Plains, NY 10603

   Tel:(914)682-0626

   Fax:(914)682-0506

CompuServe:71140,234


Scanman_Color

From what I have seen, hand scanners have vastly improved over the years. I have had a gray scale hand scanner for many years now. I have always wanted a flat bed scanner, but they are as yet too costly for me to justify. A hand scanner is a different story. Not to say it is better, it is just less expensive and more portable while maintaining its purpose, to capture images. A Flat bed scanner does best with flat items, such as paper and photos. How easy would it be to scan an image on a large box? That's where a hand scanner comes into play. A hand scanner can scan items that you can not necessary place on the top of a flat scanning bed. With either type of scanner the quality of output must be good. The new Logitech ScanMan Color (hand scanner) is small, easy to use and will produce quality 24 bit color images.

What's Included In This Package:

  ScanMan Color Scanner.

  A 16-bit interface card.

  FotoTouch Color Image Editing Software.

  Installation and User's Guide Manuals.

Like the original ScanMan, Logitech is pushing color hand scanners to a new level. ScanMan Color is the first 24 bit, 16.8 million color hand scanner. It is a 4 inch hand held scanner with TWAIN protocol compliance. Logitech is using an advanced fluorescent white light for high quality multi-color scans. Using this technology, the ScanMan Color has no warm up time. There is no wait time. You see an image, you can scan it with a minimum of waiting. I have found waiting a minute for the warm time on several color hand scanners rather annoying. With this glowing new white light, there is no overheating and distortion of images. One of the best things I found when installing this new hand scanner was that there was no Terminate and Stay Resident (TSR) program. Previously, I had to load a TSR driver for my gray scale hand scanner.

Installing the ScanMan's 16 bit interface card was a breeze. Just put it into a 16 bit slot on the motherboard. As with most hardware boards, it required an address for the computer to send signals to. I left the switch setting at the factory default, address at 280H. There are several other Base I/O Addresses available. They are 2A0H, 330H, and 340H. All other settings are set through the installation software, such as the DMA and IRQ settings. I was surprised to see that there was DMA channel support for channels 1, 3, 5, 6, and 7. The ScanMan Color 's Interrupt Request (IRQ) supports 4, 5, 11, and 12. If you are not sure which setting to use, select a setting and hit the Test button. A message will return to verify that the setting you selected will work or not. It supports 100, 200, 300, or 400 dots per inch (dpi) scanning, either in 2 colors line art, 256 colors gray scale, or 16.8 million colors. What I also noticed was that the rubber rolling bar, is longer and closer to the scanning head. This accounts for the smooth straight pull of the scanner, with almost no chance of weaving side to side, as would happen with the older hand scanners. With the closeness of the rolling bar to the scanning head, you can scan closer to the edge.

To complement the ScanMan Color scanner, FotoTouch Color Image Editing Software was added for the final touch. FotoTouch Color 1.0 includes many features that are found on many high-end photo imaging products. The main attraction to FotoTouch was the AutoStitch feature. For scanning large images, Logitech's AutoStitch feature would allow you to take multiple passes at the image and merge them perfectly together. The only way, that you could mess up the merges, was if you suddenly have an unsteady hand. In the toolbox area, there are enhancement tools and special effects, all on their own floating window. FotoTouch offers you different ways of resizing, cropping, flipping, rotating, and de-skewing the image. Image formats supported are TIFF, BMP, PCX, and JPEG. Exporting images will also get the EPS image format besides the ones already supported. When it comes to printing the image, FotoTouch has its own set of elaborate settings. It has a print preview Box, keeping in ratio with the page, centering, and a set of print extras, such as printing the document title, document parameters, color patches, crop marks, and other settings.

Scanning images using the Logitech ScanMan Color was fun to do. Since this is a hand scanner, it does take a little time and practice to master. For several of the pictures shown in this article, I had to redo them several times, so expect to be patience with this technique. The ScanMan Color was a touch larger compared to my older hand scanner. I had thought that hardware was getting smaller, but its feel was more than comfortable, almost like handling a mouse.

The installation of the hardware and software ran smoothly and trouble free. I was up and running within the hour. Even if there had been problems, technical support is free, seven days a week.

If you are like me, scanning a color graphic image occasionally and on the fly, the Logitech ScanMan Color might be what you are looking for. The only thing missing from this package, was an Optical Character Reader (OCR) software. Yes, this hand scanner can read words with the right software. The Logitech CatchWord Pro for Windows is currently an optional product you can purchase. It would have been nice to see the two bundled together in one package. One last note, when printing a high quality image, it will look best if the output device supports the image dots per inch (dpi) resolution, such as 600x600 image printing to a 600x600 printer.

   Any Microsoft Windows based computer, a 386SX and higher based computer is recommended.

   One free 16 bit slot on the motherboard for the interface card.

   Microsoft DOS 3.1 or higher.

   Microsoft Windows 3.1 running in Standard or Enhanced mode.

   4 MBytes and higher random access memory (RAM).

   Approximately 3 Mbytes of disk space is required to install. More disk space, approximately 1 Mbyte per true color image, is needed for images been scanned.

   VGA with 256 colors or higher graphic resolution, 16 to 24 bit color video card recommended.

   Any Windows pointing device.

For more information, please contact:

Logitech, Inc.

6505 Kaiser Drive

Fremont, CA 94555

510-795-8500

1-800-231-7717

FAX:  510-792-8901

List Price is $699.00


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Mannequin Designer

Mannequin Designer is one of those programs that you can't help but exclaim, "This is really cool!" when you first get your hands on it. With this program you can draw detailed human models with many variations and pose them with your designs or presentations. Mannequin Designer can be used with Ventura Publishing, Corel Draw, Micrografx Designer, Aldus Pagemaker, Word Perfect, Harvard Graphics, AutoCAD and other CAD, Windows and DOS applications.

Mannequin Designer offers an extensive toolbar to draw or manipulate your creation. The Arrow is the dragging cursor, used to edit and reposition objects or parts of mannequins. The Hand selects objects for editing and movement. The Magnifier, or zoom tool allows selection and enlargement of an area of the drawing. Color Palette is used to selection the current line color, affecting some of the shading procedures used in the view menu. Grid toggles a grid you might be using for reference, and the Light icon is used to position the keylight (main light source) to determine positions of highlights and shadows. The Recorder adds a single frame to animation sequences, and the Camera placement icon positions the camera to choose framing and perspective. Text allows placement of labels, but TrueType is not supported within Mannequin Designer, and you can only select from nine variations of essentially four fonts. Human allows specification of the nature of the figure desired through a dialog box. Drawing tools follow: Arc, Line, Curve, Ellipse, Regular Polygon, Rectangle, Irregular Polygon, Sphere, Cylinder, Box, Cone, Surface, Torus and Wedge. Dimensioning Tools allow for precise distances, either specified by you or calculated by the program. The Viewports Palette provides selections to view the three dimensional figures on the screen, from Front, Back, Left, Right, Bottom and Top. Camera uses the specifications you've set up in the Camera View placement tool, and User, which views from a user-defined angle. 2-View and 4-View allows a side-by-side viewport display of 1-1 or 3-1 with the display selection user-specified. Stage adds a see-through 3D box defining the limits set in the Scene/Set Stage command. Finally, the Snap Tools palette causes new objects to snap to the Floor, Close (closest) Point within the range selected, or nearest increment of the Grid.

Body types are selected when first creating a mannequin, and span many physical types and nationalities. The list is extensive and the differences subtle. Some physical characteristics of a figure can later be changed in the Change Body menu. The type of mannequin can be specified as Human, Robot or Stick Figure. The figure shown below is a "Human" figure; those used in the opening graphic have been shaded.

Once you have created your mannequin, individual body parts can be selected and moved. However, Mannequin Designer purports to be for ergonomic purposes, among others, so each body part will only duplicate human ranges of motion.

The Hand Postures dialog box features nine commonly used grips or gestures to facilitate posing a hand without going through the effort of moving individual fingers. A similar dialog box for body postures appears when a figure is first created which features eight common body poses.

A wide range of menu options allows you to create or import and then manipulate objects on your set. A palette of sixteen colors is at your command.

Mannequin Designer has animation features allowing you to record and later edit animated movement of the scenes you create. The recorder tool activates the frame camera, allowing you to record any single scene, move your figures, and record the following frames. REC files created by the program can be converted to .GIF or .FLI formats using conversion utilities supplied.

Mannequin Designer should not be confused with Mannequin, the DOS program from HumanCad. The DOS program is more fully featured and provides for more industrial design usage. However, a representative of HumanCad indicated that a substantial update to the Windows version is to be made available in the near future.

                  Summary

I did not find Mannequin Designer especially intuitive in many cases, and the slowness of screen redraws (see below) further frustrated my efforts to "learn on the fly" as many of us often try to do. Selection of objects on the screen can be somewhat difficult as well. Admittedly, I have had no extensive exposure to other CAD type programs; I suspect that experience would have made a difference in my learning curve and should be taken into consideration.

HumanCad specifies system requirements as a 286 or better, math co-processor recommended, hard drive, 2 MB RAM minimum, and Windows 3.X. This review was nearly shelved when I first began an evaluation using a 386DX-25 and waited seemingly forever for screen redraws. I moved to a 4 meg 386DX-25 with an Intel math co-processor and SVGA card and remained frustrated. The evaluation was completed on a 16 meg 486DX-33 with a 1 meg Tseng ET4000-based SVGA video card. Still, the shaded figures in the title graphic took approximately twenty seconds to redraw completely in 640x480! In the frame mode, the character was re drawn in less than three seconds, but I still felt it to be an impediment. HumanCad recommended changing the Auto-Regenerate setting so the entire figure is not re drawn each time a minor change is made. Instead, a "ghost" of the past location remains on screen, which can be confusing at times. I could only recommend a 386 or 486 processor for Mannequin Designer and would recommend a graphics accelerator or local bus graphics in order to achieve any productivity.

Mannequin Designer is available for $99.00 as a "Special Introductory Offer" with no expiration date indicated, certainly very reasonable for a program of this sophistication. A disk containing a 3-D furniture and fixture library is sent to those mailing in their registration.

For further information please contact:

HumanCad

1800 Walt Whitman Road

Melville, New York 11747

1-800-437-4441


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Excel Book Reviews

by Frank J. Mahaney

Many of us are greatly perplexed by the documentation and manuals supplied with software these days. We do our very best NOT to read these manuals. We go right for the install or setup routine and then we try to navigate the program through it's (we hope) intuitive menus and interface. The reason for these short cuts are that much of the written documentation is usually quite boring. It also is often difficult to easily find the information we need.

Publishers of computer books have enjoyed increasing sales of simpler, easier, better organized, and in some cases interesting books about your favorite software.

We will take a look at how two different books, available in your book store today, can help you learn to use Microsoft's spreadsheet, Excel v4.0.

Excel 4 for Windows

the Complete Reference

by Reed Jacobson

Computer books that have in the title "Complete Reference", typically mean that their main purpose is to give you a reference guide the all terminology, commands, functions, etc. This book is interesting in that it provides the first 20% (PART I - The Excel Basics) of its contents teaching you what we all need to know to get started with Excel.

PART I - The Excel Basics

Section 1

Overview of Excel 4 for Windows

Section 2

Producing Worksheets

Section 3

Creating Charts

Section 4

Using a Database

Section 5

Working with Macros

PART II - The Excel Dictionary

Alphabetical List of Commands and  Functions

Very short appendixes include:

PART III - Appendixes

A - Installing Windows and Excel

B - The Excel Character Set

OK, OK, OK (that's LA speak), so who would want to buy this book you ask? If you just bought Excel and are a bit overwhelmed by the included documentation, the easy manner of this book's early chapters will get you off to a comfortable start. Excel can be a bit overwhelming and getting through the basics in a pleasing manner is, as you might guess, most helpful. However, the main reason to purchase the book is for its on-going, future reference to all of Excels features and commands. It's the second section that is the real purpose for this book.

The second main section, 75% of the contents, contain:

The reference section has a simple alphabetic structure which can speed up your search for helpful information. There are four major types of entries, they are:

Concepts

Menu Commands

Functions

Macro Functions

An EXAMPLE entry, extracted directly from the book:

"COLUMNS, DELETING"

Concept

To delete a column, select any cell or cells in the column that you want to delete and choose the Edit Delete menu option. The Delete dialog box opens, as shown here. Choose the Entire Column option and click on OK.

You can also select the entire column by clicking on the column heading, and then choose the Edit Delete menu option. If you use this method, no dialog box opens, since Excel knows that you want to delete the entire column. When you delete a column, the column to the right takes it's place. If you delete column B, column C moves to the left and becomes a new column B.

See Also

CLEARING CELLS VS 	Explains clearing	Concept

DELETING CELLS	and deleting

EDIT DELETE	Related command	Menu Command

As you can tell this book can be quite helpful when Excel gets a bit difficult. Look for it in your favorite book store. the retail price is $29.95.

Excel 4

for

Windows

the Complete Reference

Written by

Martin S. Matthews

& Stephanie Seymour

For more information you can write to:

Osborne McGraw-Hill

2600 Tenth Street

Berkeley, CA 94710

.........................................................................................................................................

Excel Trade Secrets for Windows

by Reed Jacobson

While the previous book discussed everything (Reference) about certain aspects of Excel, this book clearly professes not to do that. It suggests to only "teach" you the "good stuff". This book does not assume you are an extremely advanced user, good thing too! Though being well versed in Excel'ez to start with will pay off when reading these tips.

This book is loaded with descriptive graphics (the type we use here - screen captures) and tons of tips. What this book intends to teach are, better ways to get your work done within Excel. Reading the tips all by themselves are very informative but not the best approach. I found it much better to read the entire chapter along with the tips contained therein to receive the full benefit of the tips.

An EXAMPLE	T I P

If you want to create a temporary, stand-alone document (one that's not in a workbook, but that you don't need to save) and you want to give it a long, readable name, you can use a workbook as a catalyst. Create a workbook and add the document to the workbook. Change the name inside the workbook to the long name you want. Remove the document from the workbook. (It keeps the long name.) Close the workbook.

Here is a look at how this book is laid out.

I Formulas

1 Working with Worksheets

2 Making Formulas Work Better

3 Finding a Value in a List

4 Calculating with Dates

5 Building Models that Project the Future

6 Substituting Values in a Model

II Data and Reports

7 Getting Data to and from Text Files

8 Creating Reports with Sorted Groups

9 Creating Summery Reports with the Crosstab ReportWizard

10 Creating Summery Reports with Other Tools

11 Creating Specialized Reports

III Charts

12 Creating Innovative Charts

13 Refining the Appearance of a Chart

IV Macros

14 Understanding Macros

15 Building a Macro that Works

16 Building a User Interface

V Lotus 1-2-3

17 Converting the Formatting of 1-2-3 Worksheets

18 Working with 1-2-3 Worksheets

A Using the Disk

A disk is provided that includes example files that go with the main part of the text. Also, are a few sample applications are included and other samples from Heiser Software. It's a good thing they include some software as this is not an inexpensive book. It's retail is $39.95, but I'm sure you can find it at a discount if you look around a bit.

So what about it Frank? Is this a book you would buy? In my case, YES! It requires you to read each chapter in full and be prepared to learn something new. It is loaded with good information and is exactly why we buy these types of book. If you want to learn more about Excel, this is a good investment.

Excel Trade Secrets

for Windows

by Reed Jacobson

For more information you can write to:

Que Corporation

11711 N. College

Carmel, IN 46032

Reviews by,

Frank J. Mahaney


FJMINFO


Orator

Reviewed by Rich Young

Orator is one of the few good off line QWK mail readers for Windows. Off line readers are a must for us BBS users, and Orator makes messaging simple and efficient. Orator is long on features and will satisfy most users who need a reliable off line mail reader.

After installing the program, the first thing I had to do was configure it for my system.

This is simply a matter of pointing Orator to where my mail packets are kept, and where to put the reply packets. You also need to point out where PKZIP and PKUNZIP reside. Here you can also specify a signature file to be added to your replies, if you so desire. Now I can open a QWK packet and read mail.

Orator has opened the packet and is now displaying the vital statistics for that packet. Pulling down the Window menu item reveals all the actions and options available for the open packet. The Welcome and Session items allow you to view those items with Oratview, which is a utility that shows those screens as they look on the BBS that the packet is from. The same goes for Bulletins, News and Files etc. The Replies option allows you to view any previous replies you may have in that particular packet.

My first choice in this menu is of course Messages. This brings up the Messages window and is where I will do all the reading and replying to the open packet.

Notice the stylish 3D effect the header information section has. All this information is easy to read and quite complete. Below is the actual message screen, which even has scroll bars in case the message is longer than the screen allows. By the way, the first message displayed is the top message in the first conference in your packet. Below the message portion is a series of action buttons  that are your tools to navigate through your packet and act on individual messages etc. The buttons function as follows:

The Next button simply takes you to the next message forward. After the last message in a particular conference, this button will take you to the first message in the next conference.

The Previous button takes you back one message.

The Print button will print out the displayed message.

The List button brings up the list window listing all messages in the current conference, if you like to skip around.

The Steal button allows you to swipe a good tagline with the Tagline Thief.

The Search button brings up the search dialog box where you can search out text using several different criteria.

The Reply button allows you to reply to the current message, or enter a new message to anyone in any conference.

The Save button allows you to save the current message to a folder for later reference.

The Conference button lets you change to another message conference quickly by choosing one from the Conference selection dialog box.

The Cancel button simply closes the messages window and returns you to the open packet ID window.

Now I want to reply to a message or enter a new one. From the messages screen I hit the Reply button which brings up the Reply Entry box. From here I either confirm that the header is of the message I want to reply to, or in the case of entering a new message, I enter the appropriate header information. Clicking on the Conference button or box brings up the Conference selection window if I need to change conferences. After confirming or entering the To, From, Subject, Tagline and Conference information, and clicking on OK, I go to the Reply/Messages window shown above. Here the message being replied to is entirely quoted with the authors initials heading each line. I simply delete the lines I don't wish to quote and enter my message as I see fit. Choosing Save from the File menu retains your message and brings you back to the messages window.

One improvement I would suggest in Orator is that when you want to enter a new message to someone else, that you should get a blank screen instead of a quoted message. As it is now, no matter who your message is to, the last message is still fully quoted, forcing you to delete the unwanted text to start your fresh message.

Orator has a great system for saving messages for later reference. From the messages screen I click on the Save button to bring up the Save Message To Folder dialog box. From here I simply select the folder I want to save to, or I can create a new folder as I deem appropriate. Anytime I want to refer to a saved message, I just select the Folders menu item from the main window which brings up the Folders window.

From here I just select a folder, which then lists all saved messages within that folder. I highlight the message I want, and choose Show to view the message, or I can Delete it, Move it to another folder, and Pack the folders, which involves the purging of deleted records from the message database and it rebuilds indexes. I found this system to be a great feature of this program.

Another great feature is the ability to remotely configure the QMAIL door. By opening the Doors menu item from the main window, and selecting Qmail, you can Add or Drop conferences and Reset message pointers among other things. Future versions of Orator may support other mail doors in the same manner.

In Conclusion:

I found Orator to be a fine mail reader in most respects. I did find it a little slow in opening a packet, but all of the great features made up for the wait. The author made the program user friendly and very convenient to use. There is no need for documentation as the interface is basically fool-proof. Registering this product can be a bit of a hassle in this country, as the author requires payment in English Pound Sterling, but this program is worth the hassle.

For more information about Orator contact:

Nick Dyer

EvaWare UK

5 Grosvenor Court

Louth

Lincolnshire LN11 9LT

England

Orator v1.12 is available to members on Windows OnLine (510) 736-8343 under the filename #ORA112.ZIP, so you can try it out for yourself.

Brought to you by

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  Rich Young
  Staff Writer
  Windows OnLine


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