TOM'S COMPUTER NOTES FOR DECEMBER 1991

Public Domain

dBBFast... Sounds like some kind of a way to merge dBase &
Windows. Free demo disk from Computer Associates 1-800-645-3003
and I think you have to have a 3.5 inch drive.

FOXPRO 2.0 runs on your 512K XT or (in extended mode) on your 386
or 486. Free demo disk 1-800-837-FOX2.

MAPINFO FOR Windows (all kinds of map data available, city maps,
ZIP codes, etc.) Demo: 1-800-FAST-MAP.

MICRO EXPRESS computers always get rave reviews in the magazines.
So, they don't have any trouble selling their product. (The price
is right too.) They save lots of money on advertising because of
the demand but that makes it hard for you to find out what they
have available. Call 1-800-989-9900 to get on their mailing list.

MY BUDDY with a MICRO EXPRESS told me today, "My computer is so 
fast it scares me!"

CRASH CITY - Or, more descriptive of the problem, a locked up
machine. The oftime culprit PC-Cache (Ver. 6) (perhaps mis-
installed somehow) was suspected. So it was again, on the TANDON
laptop. A good test is BUGFRY.COM which locks up right away. My
word processor waits 5 minutes or so to freeze. I'll try PC-CACHE
Ver. 7 and see what happens.... The TANDON is so fast that I
don't really need a cache program.

I WONDERED why my word processor was locking up on the laptop.
Had to sit and wait for 1-2 minutes and all would be well again.
The answer: On the laptop the Prt Scrn key does NOT require that
the Control key be held down in order to activate Print Screen.
The Prt Scrn key is right next to the oft used Backspace key. Ah
Ha! An accidental Prt Scrn tap with the edge of a finger causes
the computer to attempt to print to the non-existant printer via
the parallel port. For some reason there is no error message,
just the suspension of the running program while the computers
trys and retrys to send data. Solution: NOPRSCR.COM from PC-
Magazine. It's available on Bigfoot. Download the file
VOL10n18.ZIP which contains NOPRSCR plus several other utilities.

PC-Magazine recently ran A STORY ON VIRUS DETECTION UTILITIES.
Well, I don't have anything like that lurking in the bowels of my
hardware but just for fun I'll drag out a utility package and run
a test. Up on the screen comes something like --- "DANGER -
Partition Table infected with STONED virus. Run CLEANOUT program
immediately." Which I did. ... Checked some of my floppies and
they were infected too. Not any of the 3.5 inch ones, though.
Maybe an old version of STONED which "doesn't do" 3.5 inchers?
What surprised me the most was that disks I haven't used in years
such as my DOS 3.2 master disk were infected. Or, were they? Was
it a false warning to make me think I had something wrong that
the utility would then "fix"? I remember an old HD test & repair
utility of some years ago that ALWAYS found some bad sectors even
on my 100% good hard drive. It blocked them out and it was a pain
to get them back via PC-Tools and manually changing bits on both
copies of the FAT. On the other hand, if STONED is smart enough
to only ZAP me once every six months or so that could explain
some of my past unexplained HD problems.

WORDSTAR FAN? You can get Ver. 5.5 for $13.90 postpaid from DAK.
It comes in all 4 sizes of floppy. Specify which size you want,
360K, 1.2, 720 or 1.44. 1-800-DAK-0800.

ANOTHER freebe: Q&A 4.0 demo. 1-800-228-4122, Ext. 104-D.

QUICKEN 5.0 arrived. It took me about 5 minutes to get a crash
and an "Internal error 800, contact technical support" message.
Tech support is NOT an 800 number. I'll use it a while longer
before I decide if I want to go back to Ver. 4.0 or not.

BIG SOFTWARE discounts. DANMARK offers NORTON COMMANDER 3.0 for
$19.99..... BORLAND offers to sell me QUATTRO PRO LITE (or
whatever the name is) for $49 (list $69). It's a version of
QUATTRO with just about all the bells and whistles except
WYSIWYG..... TIGER Software bundles FAST! and DISK OPTOMIZER
(SoftLogic) for $29.

LOGITECH MOUSE drivers get bigger and better(?). Ver 4.xx was
15K. Then came Ver 5.xx at 28K. Now I have Ver 6 at 34K. It is
supposed to work better (?) with DOS 5 and WORD 5.5 but all it
does for me is lock up SOFTWARE CAROUSEL when I try to flip into
to setup box to twiddle some changes. Guess I'll stick with the
15K version.

FREE DEMO disk from Word Perfect of their OFFICE program. 1-800-
526-5161.

THE END
