CompuNotes Notes from The Cutting Edge of Personal Computing August 23, 1998 Issue 127 +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= To subscribe, send an e-mail to listserv@peach.ease.lsoft.com SUBSCRIBE COMPUNOTES-L FirstName LastName To unsubscribe, send an e-mail to listserv@peach.ease.lsoft.com SIGNOFF COMPUNOTES-L For Contact and Other Information See Bottom of Publication! +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= CONTENTS My Notes: 1=> CompuNotes Notes, mailto:pgrote@i1.net 2=> This Issue's Winner! News: 3=> News of the Week, mailto:pgrote@i1.net Reviews: 4=> Product: Of Light and Darkness: The Prophecy, game Reviewed By: Jaz Garewal, mailto:seelebrennt@theriver.com 5=> Product: SnagIt, utility Reviewed By: Tim Mullenniex, mailto:nrider@eskimo.com 6=> Product: Symantec's ACT! 4.0 Contact Manager, business Reviewed By: Howard Carson & Proton Research, mailto:lrhc@interlog.com 7=> Product: @loha@home, Version 2, e-mail utility Reviewed By: Robin Nobles, mailto:smslady@netdoor.com 8=> Product: ClarisWorks 5.0v1, business Reviewed By: Howard Carson & Proton Research, mailto:lrhc@interlog.com --- BEGIN ISSUE ******************************** Free Small Business Newsletter!* ****************************************************************** SMARTBIZ NEWS E-Mail Newsletter - - What Is It? It's a newsletter filled with a wealth of valuable info to help you in every aspect of your job. Whether you own the company or just started working for it, SMARTBIZ.COM NEWS has something for you. You may not use everything but you're sure to find lots of valuable information in every issue. Subscribe now! It's FREE! Click Here: http://www.get-it-for-free.com/compunotes/smartbiz.htm ****************************************************************** 1=> CompuNotes Notes, mailto:pgrote@i1.net The Linux Fallacy Why oh why do people always think that something free can overtake something that costs money? If that were the case we'd all use freeware and a company named Microsoft wouldn't exist. This lunacy is really starting to develop into a frenzied mob mentality with the popularity of Linux. Yes, Linux is a pretty cool operating system. Yes, it does do certain things well. Yes, it will never become mainstream. Ok, I said it. Linux is DOA when it comes to integrating it into the real world life of computer users. Geek network administrators in Fortune 1000 companies yearning for the free range days are implementing Linux as e-mail servers, print servers, firewalls and even more. I don't know if this is a generation of new technical people wanting to emulate the old hands in the business, but it is not a big deal in the overall scheme of things. All it takes in one of these installations is a bug or unanticipated issue with the Linux installation and management will truly find out what user supported software means ... no company to back up the product. Linux is certainly growing up. Clustering, raid support, etc. make it an attractive server based platform especially when NetWare and Windows NT Server still cost money and are based on non-standards. This growth, to date, has been in the perfect markets. Home users who want a free operating system to run on their old 486/25 as a server, companies who want to implement a firewall with parts off the shelf and programming folks who want to be part of something larger than themselves. What got me thinking about this is an article on TechWeb which mentions that Caldera is touting Linux as a great solution for the SOHO (small office/home office) market. http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19980823S0002 Caldera is the company formed by Mr. Anti-Microsoft, Ray Norda former CEO of Novell. You gotta respect Ray, though. He got his backside kicked in round one with Microsoft and now he is back to get it done again. This isn't to say that Cladera hasn't done a good job finding holes in Microsoft's armor. They have been doing very well selling Dr. DOS, an MSDOS compatible operating system, to companies to use in embedded chips for smart phones, etc. Microsoft missed the boat in this area and Caldera is making them pay. But Linux for the SOHO market? Please . . . The article on TechWeb talks about how Linux will make a great server for small businesses. I agree with that with the caveat that the small business owner must be technical. When was the last time you saw a LEARNING LINUX IN 24 HOURS book at your local Waldens or Barnes and Noble? The article then goes on to detail the secret in this Linux weapon is the collection of applications. Offering StarOffice word processing, graphics, spreadsheet, database and e-mail the software is priced more attractive than Office from Microsoft. I'm sorry, did we timewarp back to the late 80s early 90s? I thought the business software war was over and everyone agrees Office pretty much rules the world at this time. Who doesn't use Office? Um, IBM probably uses SmartSuite based on the fact they bought Lotus and WordPerfect uses, well, WordPerfect, but other than that who is left? According to Dataquest 9 out of 10 companies use Office now, so there aren't many people who don't. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/zdnn_display/0,3440,2114515,00.html Small businesses would be nuts, no, absolutely nuts, to choose a non-standard software package to run their business with. First time the small business owner needs to share information with one client or other company which represents 90% of the market owned by Office he would be SOL. Sure, StarOffice allows you to save a file in Microsoft Word format, but come on, you ever seen a translated file? Heck, Microsoft can't even translate between Word versions with 100% accuracy! What about accounting software? Gee, where is the QuickBooksPro for Linux? I didn't know PeachTree released a Linux version. They didn't and that is the part one of the problem. Software. The second part of the problem is support. A typical small business owner can hit up friends for support. Chances are they use Windows 95, 98 or NT and Office. If the owner is having really big trouble, finding a local consultant to help is no big deal with the Microsoft products. Good luck finding one who can tell a Linux from a UNIX prompt or even one who can set up a mailing list using StarOffice. Linux is a good product. It is an excellent tool to make certain things happen. It is not a mainstream offering. It is ironic that the thing that makes Linux so attractive and good, user supported and open, is also the thing that will prevent it from becoming mainstream. Of course, comments are welcome at pgrote@compunotes.com. mailto:pgrote@compunotes.com. 2=> Winner! This week's winner: Zalman@PAONLINE.COM. 3=> News and Game Bits, mailto:pgrote@i1.net or mailto:dr2web@sprynet.com The End of Banner Ads? http://www.cw.com.hk/Analysis/a980821001.htm Most Big Web Sites Are Not User Friendly . . . http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,25499,00.html?st.ne.1.head An MCSE Working at McDonalds? http://www.zdnet.com/pcweek/opinion/0817/17wide.html How Humans Fall in Love with their Machines . . . http://www.abcnews.com/sections/tech/FredMoody/moody980821.html How Tomahawks Work . . . http://www.msnbc.com/modules/tomahawk/default.asp 4=> Product: Of Light and Darkness: The Prophecy, game Reviewed By: Jaz Garewal, mailto:seelebrennt@theriver.com Requires: Pentium 90, 16MB RAM, 2X CD, Windows 95 Review on: Pentium 200, 64MB RAM, 8X CD, Windows 95 MSRP: $49.95 Compelling story, great graphics and dry humor. So why, if all of these are attributes of Interplay's "Of Light and Darkness: The Prophecy", am I hesitant to give the game a great review? It's too complicated! Before getting anywhere in the game I had to read the manual twice, and take the on-line tutorial three times. This maybe a result of my rusty gaming skills (I have not played a computer game in a few months due to a hellish class schedule), but I still believe that the game would not suffer if given a thicker instruction manual. The confusion starts right at the foundation of the game, with the background story. From what I understand the game is set at the dawn of the year 2000, and the player is the Chosen One. Signs like El Nino and other disasters have signaled the coming of the Apocalypse, and it is the player's duty to stop Armageddon by representing the people of Earth in a trial for the fate of the world. Sounds confusing? It gets worse. The player is taken to the Village of the Damned and there they must go around trying to find certain artifacts that will free citizens, also known as "apparitions" of the Village, thus moving the world farther and farther away from the Apocalypse. Each citizen has committed one of the seven deadly sins (gluttony, lust, avarice (greed), anger, envy, accidie (sloth) and pride) and the artifact needed to free a citizen is relevant to their act. The Chosen One has a limited amount of time to redeem each citizen otherwise some event occurs, and this moves the world closer to its end (the first event is World War III). The eventual goal of the game is to rid the Village of all the apparitions and free a being known as the Prophetess Angel, and stop Gar Hob "The Dark Lord of the Seventh Millennium" (voiced by screen actor James Woods). Now that is just the story and objective of the game, playing the game gets a lot more complicated. There is, however, an on-line tutorial/walkthrough that does some good in trying to explain the intricacies of the game. Yet, this is not enough. The game needs some serious sit-down/play-around time to get comfortable with the gameplay. I am not saying that this is a bad thing, in fact it is a welcome break from the simple 3-D, first person shooters that have flooded the market in recent years, but it does require a longer concentration span then normally associated with the MTV generation. The graphics and sound in this game are what really helps this game. Moving around the Village of the Damned might bring back old memories for fans of the classic game 7th Guest with its flowing transitional movement from one scene to the next. The sound is great too, with the exception of a few music tracks, which come across as pop radio rejects. James Woods really helps set the mood of the game, adding his eerily, unaffected-by-anything voice to the environment. Overall the game is pretty decent, and comes across as potentially interesting and fun. The downside is it takes a lot of time to learn, and grasp, the concepts needed to successfully play the game. I would recommend this game for anyone 13 and up who has a lot of time to kill. Interplay and Tribal Dreams Of Light and Darkness: The Prophecy Product Website: http://www.oflightanddarkness.com 5=> Product: SnagIt, utility Reviewed By: Tim Mullenniex, mailto:nrider@eskimo.com Requires: Windows 3.1, 3.11, WIN95 or NT 3.51 or later, Mouse and 740K hard drive space Reviewed on: Pentium 133MMX, 32 Megs Ram MSRP $39.95 SnagIt is a utility everyone should have. Have you ever needed to print what you see on the screen? I find that it is very useful when there is no way to print what you see on screen. It does this and much more. Have you ever tried to tell someone in the office how to do things in a software program? I always remember where the button is or the location of the tab, but for the life of me I don't remember the name. Well your problem is solved with the best feature SnagIt has. The solution is to make a movie with "video capture." That's right. It will remember all your keystrokes and it even will animate the mouse pointer so you can show exactly how to do different tasks. It will look exactly how your task at hand was done. This is a great training tool everyone should have. It is a versatile utility because it takes very little hard drive space. It is fast to install and a person can learn to use it in a matter of minutes. My system didn't have any lag at all using it. Screen capture was perfected with this program using image capture, text capture (can be edited) and video capture. In the video capture mode you can tell it how many frames per second you want it to work, and it will save the file in an AVI format. In the text mode, you can screen capture what is on the screen plus whatever is in the scroll window. This means, that if you hold down the mouse button, it will capture everything in the windows even if it goes off the screen. It will save that to a BMP format that can easily be edited in Windows Paint program. The help is awesome too. Click on the help button and everything you can do with this program is all indexed and hyper-linked. This is a program that doesn't require a manual. All the buttons and settings for the entire program are made so that you can customize it to your needs. SnagIt also supports DDE and MAPI for integration into other applications. To do a capture it is as easy as hitting

and that combination can be changed if needed. You can SnagIt in a DOS session, full window, multiwindows, you name it. I personally could not believe all the features one utility can have. SnagIt will Print screens that normally you could not. Make training AVI's that people can understand. Easy to use with the help as good as it gets. Installation that is smart enough to see if you have a 32 bit machine or not and not take up more hard drive space than is necessary. TechSmith SnagIt Website: http://www.techsmith.com ************************************** Learn Electronics In Your Spare Time!* ********************************************************************* Cleveland Institute of Electronics is the World Leader in Electronics Education and we want to send you a FREE Electronics Symbols Handbook and Course Catalog. Request our Free Handbook Now! Click Here: http://www.get-it-for-free.com/compunotes/cleveland.htm ********************************************************************* 6=> Product: Symantec's ACT! 4.0 Contact Manager, business Reviewed By: Howard Carson & Proton Research, mailto:lrhc@interlog.com Requires: Windows 95, 98 or NT4, 486/DX33 or higher CPU, at least 8MB RAM, CD-ROM drive, VGA video. MSRP: US$199.95 Symantec's ACT! 4.0(R) is a complete relationship, customer and calendar management solution. It is designed to manage business relationships and sales contacts by means of an integrated set of tools which include a powerful database, word processor, calendar/time manager, day/month/year planner, to-do list and communications (controls for e-mail, fax, intranet, workgroup and browser.) The software can be used on individual workstations, mobile computers (portables, laptops, etc.), small and large networks, by workgroups and by single users. It can accept remote logins, synchronize data among workgroup users no matter where they're located, coordinate multiple to-do lists and even manage contacts when more than one individual in a workgroup has access to the same contacts. ACT! 4.0 provides an excellent method of providing constantly updated information about contacts to the people who have to manage the relationships. ACT! 4.0 installed without problems on the following machines: a clone AMD586/90MHz 16MB RAM running Win95 (final release), a Gateway(R) dual P100/96 MB RAM running Windows NT4.0 with service pack 3, two Dell(R) P166MMX computers with 32MB and 128 MB RAM respectively running Windows 98 (OEM release), two Micron(R) P200MMX computers with 64MB of RAM each with one running Windows 95(b) and the other running Windows NT4 with service pack 3, and a (clone) Pentium II 333/64 MB RAM running Windows 95 and NT4 in a dual boot configuration. The software gang at Proton Research decided to test ACT! 4.0 by setting up a dummy company. Seven research assistants acted as mutual contacts and sales leads. We began by setting up everyone with all the names, home addresses and external business addresses of everyone in the group. During the 7 day test period we all gradually added such things as personal notes, business details, extra contact names and numbers (as well as e-mail and Web addresses) and potential deals and purchases. ACT! kept things straight, especially when several testers began calling me within minutes of each other (each caller entered notes immediately so the next caller knew what details had been discussed in the previous call.) There is strong competition in this software category. The smallest companies, the biggest companies and everything in between are making use of contact management software, network-wide and remotely. Symantec's ACT! seems to have risen above the competitive crowd with the release of v4.0. A superior contact manager has to provide all levels of sales and management with instant access to appointments (with alarms), follow-ups (with advance warnings), instant access to notes attached to individual client and client groups and other contacts, integrated e-mail and faxing to allow direct contact with everyone in the database (contacts and colleagues), a private address book, the ability to synchronize contacts among colleagues (and warnings when someone has already contacted someone you're about to call.) The software has to have powerful look-up and reporting functions too. On top of all that, the contact management software has to be easy to use (sales people and career marketing people are rarely computer wizards.) Contact management software therefore, has got to be extremely easy to use and maintain. Symantec's ACT! 4.0 seems to answer all the questions quite well. We recommend it. Cons: The SideACT To-Do List utility is rather limited in scope (we would prefer something with more than 70 characters worth of space for to-do list items.) Lotus Organizer(R) has recently been rated a best buy for small businesses. Pros: Powerful reporting, contact tracking and look-up (search) tools. Fast operation. Full database and schedule backup utility. Lots of third-party support (35-40 companies) including 3Com Palm Pilot(R) and Rolodex Rex(R), viaGrafix (training and tutorials), FedEx(R) (filling out and printing waybills), and so on. Can use Word, Outlook, IE, Netscape and a wide variety of other software to create and send documents, faxes, etc. Retire Maximizer(R) without a backward glance. Good scripting language. ACT! should be a best buy before the end of 1998. Symantec. ACT! 4.0 for Windows 95/NT (and Windows 98) Product Web site: http://www.symantec.com 7=> Product: @loha@home, Version 2, e-mail utility Reviewed By: Robin Nobles, mailto:smslady@netdoor.com Requires: IBM compatible PC with a 486 or higher CPU, MS Windows 95 or NT, any e-mail package that accepts attachments, 8 MB of RAM, 40 MB of hard disk space, CD-ROM drive, 256 color VGA monitor, MS Windows compatible mouse, sound card (optional) MSRP: $49.95 Websites that offer greeting cards to send over the Internet are extremely popular and a lot of fun, but there's one major drawback: you're pretty much limited in what you can do as far as your choices in graphics, sound, and animation. Plus, the e-mail cards are usually posted on-line, versus being sent to the recipient's personal e-mail box. @loha@home, Version 2, changes all of that. @loha@home is a multimedia e-mail package that allows you to send animated e-mail messages over the Internet. *You* pick the graphics, the background, and the border. *You* pick the sound. *You* pick the size, type, and color of the font. And *you* can even animate the graphic or the text! You have full reign over your greeting card, with the limitations only being your imagination. In fact, the program is so easy to use that it only has three basic steps: drag and drop your graphic choice into the gallery; add your message; and e-mail it. One thing I really like about the program is the fact that it offers a step-by-step tutorial, and that the user's manual offers such helpful information on how to get the most out of the program. Would you believe that @loha@home offers over 2000 different characters, backgrounds, sound clips, and music bits? Let's say your friend has a dog. Choose a dog graphic, a paw print border, and a song like the "crazy bone rag." Have the dog race across the screen, gradually getting smaller and smaller, as the music plays and your text flashes across the screen. Wow! So how are your friends able to view an animated greeting card without a special program? After you create your card, you're given the option of attaching a "player" to your animation. Any recipient of your @loha-gram will be able to view this type of file and will receive the player for free. Once the recipient has finished viewing your card, he/she should install the player into his/her computer. For your Macintosh-user friends, you're even given the choice of sending a Mac player. The average animation is about 10 to 20K in size, so it doesn't take long for your friends to download your special cards. Plus, they'll be able to save the card, versus on-line greeting cards that expire after a certain period of time. Over a year ago, I reviewed @loha 1.0, so I was anxious to see what changes had been made to this latest version. For one thing, the interface is much simpler to use. A Wizard has been added that can help you create special occasion greeting cards or a customized photo album. Plus, if you have problems remembering those special dates, this program has a Reminder Service to take care of that. With the new version, you can even record your own voice with the built-in sound recorder! Wouldn't it be wonderful to say "Happy Birthday" to a special friend in your own voice? Also, you can import pictures directly from your digital camera, or you can import scanned images to be used in your greeting cards. Media Synergy offers a free evaluation version of this software, so try it yourself and see what you think. The program is easy to use and a lot of fun. If you enjoy sending on-line greeting cards, this program is for you! Media Synergy @loha@home Version 2 Product Website: http://www.mediasynergy.com/Products/forhome.htm ************************ Rebates for Eating Out!* ******************************************************************** Dining A la Card - - Join Now For 60 Days Free And Start Earning 20% Cash Back Right Away! It doesn't cost you a penny to try Dining à la Card now. And the cash rebates are yours to keep without any obligation! Join Now for 60 DAYS FREE and earn 20% Cash Back when you visit any of our participating establishments nationwide! Click Here: http://www.get-it-for-free.com/compunotes/dining.htm ******************************************************************** 8=> Product: ClarisWorks 5.0v1, business Reviewed By: Howard Carson & Proton Research, mailto:lrhc@interlog.com Requires: Windows 95, 98 or NT4, 486/DX33 or higher CPU, at least 8MB RAM, CD-ROM drive, VGA video. MSRP: US$99. ClarisWorks is a comprehensive software suite consisting of a powerful word processor, spreadsheet, outline builder for planning documents and projects, a full set of drawing and painting tools, a presentation mode, graphing and charting tools, database and telecommunications modules. The entire package is versatile, easy to learn and use and represents an excellent alternative to Microsoft Office(R), Lotus SmartSuite(R) and Corel WP/Office Suite(R). ClarisWorks can be used in home, SOHO, educational and professional business environments. The software gang at Proton Research tested ClarisWorks on the following machines: P90/16MB RAM running Win95 (final release), dual P100/96 MB RAM running Windows NT4.0 with service pack 3, two P166MMX computers with 32MB and 128 MB RAM respectively running Windows 98 (OEM release), and a Pentium II 333/64 MB RAM running Windows 95 and NT4 in a dual boot configuration. Claris Corporation was a subsidiary of Apple Corp. The Claris subsidiary is now called FileMaker Inc., and has been refocused on database software. Apple Corp. is very actively continuing support and development of ClarisWorks. The ClarisWorks user interface (UI) has some elements of MacOS. It's not surprising considering Claris' Mac origins. The UI is also a bit icon heavy. The logical, well-grouped feature and function sets are remarkably easy to use however; moreso than either of the Microsoft or Corel products. The first milestone we reached was the successful loading of Word 2.0 through Word 97 files. This was a bit of a surprise even considering the fact that Claris uses the DataViz document loaders to handle both Word and WordPerfect documents. There were some minor problems with some of our test files (truncated footnotes and a lost tab or two in a Word 97 document) and some lost macros when we resaved a WordPerfect 6 for Windows document. After horsing around with nearly 60 different files however, we determined that there were no insurmountable difficulties (even with the smallest problematic documents, it was much quicker to load them into Claris rather than recreating them from scratch.) 95% of the MS Works, Excel, AmiPro and AVI files we tried, loaded just fine. As long as the document structures of these major office suites remain vastly complex and changeable, there will always be some compatibility problems however. Unlike Corel WordPerfect(R) and MS Office, Claris is actually frame based, just like high-end DTP software such as MGI Calamus(R), Quark XPress(R) and Adobe Pagemaker(R). Normally, you'll load or create a document just as you would in MS Office. Claris allows you to add, insert, load, draw, paint and type new text just about anywhere on a document page, without the annoying formatting difficulties inherent in Word. Claris even provides for placement of frames via coordinate settings. An invisible frame is automatically created at the spot you've begun drawing and all the appropriate tools are available for that frame. When you're done you still have options for accurately layering what you've drawn or inserted (graphics, pictures, OLE objects, etc.), in front of or behind other objects on the document page. The creative possibilities are endless. The drawing painting and image processing tools are no substitute for Adobe PhotoShop(R), Jasc's PaintShop Pro(R) or MGI PhotoSuite(R), but you will find the Claris tools easy to use and very versatile. Although the database module in Claris does not have the relational power of some stand-alone applications, it contains far more power than most offices will ever need or want. It does not have the querying power of Microsoft Access(R) but it's still more than sufficient for handling large databases. We tested with half a dozen different databases including one that was nearly 1GB (a registered user database from a medium sized software company). Claris handled it properly. Claris also has powerful and versatile database creation tools (albeit not quite as powerful and versatile as Access.) For the vast majority of individuals and small and medium sized businesses, Claris is an excellent, easy to use choice for maintaining address lists, mass mailings, events lists, invoicing reports, catalogs, collections and several dozen other tasks. Spreadsheet creation and integration is also a breeze. As with most Claris modules, you have a choice of inserting data into an existing document or starting an entirely new file. The Claris spreadsheet module boasts power and control similar to Microsoft Excel(R), including graphing and charting capabilities (with a few nice options that Excel doesn't have.) Once again, the ease of use inherent in the common sense layout of all features and functions in ClarisWorks is very apparent. Make special note of the ClarisWorks Assistant module. It is an intriguingly useful set of wizards, guides and assistants. It provides thousands of choices, logically organized into a comprehensive range of SOHO, small office/small business, business and educational categories. While it does have some abrupt limits (in the business card assistant for example), we generally liked the choices and flexibility. The vast majority of users will be making their own templates long before they run out of choices from the templates provided. The Claris Assistant also helps most users scale the gentle Claris learning curve very quickly. For our testers who started with the Assistant, the learning curve lasted about 2 days. After that, they were banging around all over Claris without any need for help except that provided in the on-line help system and the 220 page printed manual. At no time did we need to call Claris Tech Support. Last but not least, we plumbed the depths of the Claris Internet communications module. It didn't like the presence of Outlook Express (but then Outlook Express doesn't really get along with anything except other MS products anyway.) Document conversion to HTML obeyed the HTML 3 standard. The Interne module only stumbled under Windows 98 (calling the e-mail client just wouldn't work; attempting to launch Outlook, Eudora and a couple others ended in lockups.) Cons: The line end wrapping/rendering problem prevents you from seeing the last letters of some lines before you go to print. This version of Claris does not get along perfectly with Windows 98 screen rendering. Claris also does not get along particularly well with the Dialog Helper in Mijenix Corporation's PowerDesk 98 Utilities. You won't get any crashes mind you, but you also won't get file loading and file selection dialogs displaying properly. Setting Dialog Helper to ignore Claris solves the problem. Pros: Amazing ease of use. Extremely powerful. Not 'dumbed down' like MS Office; Claris makes fewer decisions for you. Superb Assistants. Excellent file compatibility with Word, Excel, Lotus and WordPerfect. DTP-style layout controls. Handy supply of nice looking clip art. Excellent alternative to MS Office, Lotus SmartSuite or Corel WP/Office Suite. Ridiculously low price. Testing ClarisWorks was a pleasure. Installation on all test machines was flawless. If you're in the market for an office software suite, we strongly recommend you consider ClarisWorks. Apple Corp. ClarisWorks 5.0v1 Product Web site: http://store2.apple.com +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= Managing Editor: Patrick Grote -- mailto:pgrote@i1.net Assistant Editor: Doug Reed-- mailto:dr2web@sprynet.com Assistant Editor: Robin Nobles, mailto:smslady@netdoor.com Archives: ftp://ftp.compunotes.com/pub/archive Website: e-mail: mailto:notes@compunotes.com Want to Write for Us?: mailto:writers@compunotes.com fax: (314) 909-1662 voice: (314) 909-1662 +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= CompuNotes is: Available weekly via e-mail and on-line. We cover the PC computing world with comprehensive reviews, news, hot web sites, great columns and interviews. We also give away one software package a week to a lucky winner for just reading our fine publication! Never dull, sometimes tardy, we are here to bring you the computing world the way it is! Please tell every on-line friend about us! CompuNotes B440 1315 Woodgate Drive St. Louis, MO 63122 notes@compunotes.com (C)1998 Patrick Grote