CompuNotes Notes from The Cutting Edge of Personal Computing July 21, 1997 Issue 88 +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= 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 +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= CONTENTS My Notes: 1=> Do you believe in Prayer?, mailto:pgrote@i1.net 2=> This Issue's Winner! Reviews: 3=> The Big Basics Book of Word For Windows 95, book/applications by Sandy Eddy Schnyder, David Haskin, and Ed Guilford Reviewed By: Don Hughes, mailto:dhughes@wwdc.com 4=> Fighter III by Mission Studios - game/simulation Reviewed By: Mike Gallo, mailto:gallomike@aol.com 5=> Product: PartitionMagic 3.0, utility/disk Reviewed By: Doug Reed, mailto:dr2web@sprynet.com 6=> Special Edition, Using Microsoft Office Professional 97, book/applications By Rick Winter & Patty Winter Reviewed By: Don Hughes, mailto:dhughes@wwdc.com 7=> Clickables! --- BEGIN ISSUE 1=> Do you believe in Prayer?, mailto:pgrote@i1.net About a month and a half ago, I related the story of my sister-in-law to you. I was discussing this with my mother-in-law who has the faith of a believer. She wondered if we felt the many prayers people offered to us. My wife and I think we did. She then was wondering what would it be like to focus prayers and thoughts to others in need. To help her out I have posted on our web site a letter from my mother- in-law. It concerns a friend of hers who has cancer. to visit the site, click on me http://www.compunotes.com/prayer.htm. I'm not printing the letter in CompuNotes, because I want to focus this to people who truly want to help. As you visit the site, please leave me an email message at mailto:pgrote@i1.net if you would like to pass along a thought or prayer. Please, any thoughts you can pass on would be very much appreciated! 2=> Winner! No winner. 3=> The Big Basics Book of Word For Windows 95, book/applications by Sandy Eddy Schnyder, David Haskin, and Ed Guilford Reviewed By: Don Hughes, mailto:dhughes@wwdc.com Price: $19.99 USA / $26.99 Canada Wading through a book, the size of a standard sheet of paper (8.5 x 11), and one and a half inches thick, plus 590 pages in length might strike fear in the hearts and minds of most experienced computer users. However, not to fear beginners as this is a vastly illustrated guide! The authors and the publisher proposed this book as: "The most complete guide for beginners and easy because its illustrated. Easy illustrated lessons, Helpful hands on examples, Fast answers to your questions, Plus 101 quick fixes." The authors take the user on a guided tour of Microsoft Word for Windows 95, from installation (disk or CD-ROM) to the creation of a Press Release. Pages' four to thirty-nine cover the basics of learning Word, such as: How to use Words menus, using dialog boxes, toolbars, scroll bars, understanding the status bar, and getting help in Word. No complex "Techno-Talk" spoken in this guide, each step is illustrated, and all actions explained in easy to understand and numbered ( Step 1, 2, 3, etc.,) text format.! The following is a step by step example on how to magnify or reduce your view of a document minus the illustrations of course: 1. Display a document in Normal view. Then open the View menu and select Zoom. 2. In the Zoom dialog box, click 200%. Notice that the Preview box shows a sample document at the selected Zoom value. Then click OK. Word magnifies the document and changes the percentage in the Zoom drop down list. 3. Click the Zoom Control drop-down list and select Page Width. This allows you to see all the text from the left to the right margin. 4. Click Page Layout View button to change to page layout view. Click the Zoom Control drop- down list and select Whole Page, which along with Two Pages is available only in Page Layout view. 5. Notice that you can no longer read most of the text. Click the Zoom Control drop-down list and select 100%. Then return to Normal view. In addition to their illustrations the authors have placed all menu names and commands or keys the user is to enter into the computer in boldface type. The use of boldface type makes following the text and working with the examples easier for beginners to understand complex word processing operations. The Big Basics Book of Word, enhances the first time user abilities to create or add: Headers and Footers, make entries in the Address Book, Import data Base or Spreadsheet information into Word. The beginners also learn how to add elements to enrich a document such as: different fonts, graphics, text frames, and drawings. The Section "Present yourself to the World" enlightens the beginners on how to: Create a Letterhead, a personal Note Pad, a Flyer, A Resume Template, Fax Cover Sheet template, Write a Memo, create a family Newsletter, make a Greeting Card, and how to Create a Press Release. Most of the "How To" areas are in small easy to follow steps, with five to ten steps being the average. The Chapter 101 Quick fixes covers most of the problems a new Word user might encounter creating a document. The last chapter is titled "Handy References". In this part, you will find everything you need to be able to use Word for Windows 95, without stopping every five minutes to check something in help. Instead of confusing techno- talk, you'll find easy to use lists, tables, toolbars, command's shortcut keys, and key combinations. Meanwhile the more experienced Word user may find "The Big Basics Book of Word for Windows 95" a rudimentary, one must remember that this book is written for the beginner. If you are just beginning to use Word for Windows 95, then this is a essential book for your computer library. Also if you have a friend or client who is struggling to master Word, then I recommend you tell them about this book. The written text examples, combined with abundant illustrations will assist any Word for windows 95 neophytes, helping to produce professional looking documents with ease. QUE a division of Macmillan Computer Publishing 201 West 103rd Street Indianapolis, Indiana, 46290 USA. WWW: http://www.mcp.com Ratings: End User: Word for Windows 95 beginners (an experienced user may also learn a tick or two) Readability: Gold User Friendliness: Gold Quality: GOLD 4=> Fighter III by Mission Studios - game/simulation Reviewed By: Mike Gallo, mailto:gallomike@aol.com Reviewed on: Pentium-100, 16MB Ram, 4X CD-ROM, S3 64 bit SVGA Requires: 486-66 (Pentium 120 recommended), 8 MB Ram, DOS 5.0 or higher, CD-ROM, 30 MB hard disk space, VESA compatible SVGA graphics card MSRP: $50.00 I'm not a flight simulation expert, but I did feel like I was flying a real plane in Jet Fighter III. JFIII has just the right level of flying detail I think is necessary to make a flying game fun. I don't want to spend all of my time worrying over what radio channel to dial in or other little details that do not add value to the gaming experience. The basic plot of the game revolves around a rapid deployment force aboard the U.N.S Peacekeeper that is deployed off the coast of South America. There are various missions to accomplish from simple recon and identify to full blown aerial battles and also bombing mission to destroy strategic targets. As a pilot in this peacekeeping force, you have the choice of flying either the Navy's F-18 Hornet or the Air Force's F-22 Lighting II. The latter plane is a little unrealistic because the current version of the F-22 is not aircraft carrier capable, but who cares, it's only a game. For novices not familiar with any kind of flying, JFIII will put you through some basic flight training. I wouldn't call it a valid pilot school but it gives users enough skill to fly the game. The training is not easy either. I was killed at least a dozen times before I could make it through all of the training. There are plenty of ways to view the action in JFIII. You can see the plane as a pilot would (cockpit view), you can view the game from outside your plane, or view it from a fixed point of reference. The game designer of JFIII boast that it comes with a very detailed graphics of over 2 million square miles of territory. They also claim that 32 bit assembly language was used to build the simulations. Well, indeed the graphics in JFIII are very impressive. The terrain over mountains and the cloud detail in the sky add much to the sense of realism. However this realism comes at the price of performance. I could not play the game at 640 x 480 resolution with all the features turned on without a severe penalty in performance. I had to drop down to the lower resolutions to get a decent frame rate. That was irksome because the cockpit display's words are much more jagged and hard to read and the enemy planes become little flicks of specks until you get really close. However, the responsiveness of the game made up for some of these deficiencies. I did find at times that the game would pause because it had to get more data off the CD-ROM drive. I really wish there was some sort of cache option so that the game could load the data in at a trickle rate without impacting the game's performance. Otherwise, the only other suggestion I can give is to get one of those 12X CD-ROM drives and hope the delay will be cut much shorter. On my computer, the delay was sometimes a couple of seconds. That is not acceptable. There are plenty of other cues in the game to make players think they are flying in a real aircraft. Audible warnings occur when the enemy launches a missile or achieves radar lock-on. Your wingman (should you have one) also barks voice commands and reports over the radio. Sometimes the loudness of the voice startled me when I was playing the game, it's that realistic. Don't think that you can pull off super tight turns or bone crushing barrel rolls without paying for it. The game keeps track of the g- force you are placing on your virtual body while flying. As you start to push the envelope of your body's tolerance to high g-forces, you will start to pass out. As that happens the screen begins to fade to white simulating the effect of passing out. For those that want to be flying superhumans the feature can be turned off. Trees, clouds, carriers and these other things are nice, but the real meat of the game is dogfighting! In JFIII, you'll find new swear words as the enemy will more than likely find you before you can find them. After all, these are high-tech planes that have missiles with a range farther than the eye can see (on a computer screen). Targeting your enemy is just like the real thing. You have to line up several reticles to get a missile lock. This is not easy. The instruction manual that comes with the game gives some basic maneuvering techniques. They are definitely necessary to help get through the game. One thing I'm finding more and more irritating in games is the use of motion video. I think it's really neat the first couple of times I played the game, but after a while I want to just jump to the place I want to go without having all the unnecessary movement. JFIII at least has a pull down menu so that gamers don't have to walk through the ship, they can jump from point A to B. That still doesn't stop you from being subjected to movement within the rooms. A second mouse click is required to jump over these and get you directly to the desired screen. With a games like JFIII, you expect users to play the game using some sort of joystick. I cannot understand why, the creators would have buried the joystick calibration routine inside the game itself. I could not calibrate my joystick until I was flying in the plane. I had to hit escape, calibrate the joystick and then resume flight. Why not put the joystick routine up front in the program? JFIII also comes with a mini aircraft online encyclopedia of US and Russian military jet aircraft. I thought this was really neat. It was slick and laid out very nicely. Each plane had photographs, a CAD drawing, and several pages of technical info and narrative. My only regret was that it did not contain more planes. This is what I call fully using the capacity of your CD-ROM! It didn't add a lick to gameplay but the game is more enjoyable when you know a little bit more about the plane you are flying in. All in all, JFIII was an enjoyable experience. However, lackluster graphics performance, combined with some irregularities in the game prevent this game from capturing a gold medal. To get the most out of this game I recommend a Pentium 166 system with the fastest CD-ROM and graphics card gamers can get their hands on. Installation: Gold Usability: Silver Overall Rating: Silver Mission Studios 1644 Colonial Parkway Inverness, IL 60067 Web: http://www.missionstudios.com Interplay Productions 16815 Von Karman Ave. Irvine, CA 92606 Internet E-mail: mailto:Info@Interplay.com http://www.interplay.com 5=> Product: PartitionMagic 3.0, utility/disk Reviewed By: Doug Reed, mailto:dr2web@sprynet.com Requirements: 386, 8MB RAM, CDROM, Windows 95/NT, DOS, or OS/2 2.1+ MSRP: $69.95 I'll be honest. Any utility program that proclaims it can safely alter and organize your hard drives makes me nervous. When I got PartitionMagic 3.0 to review in the mail, I was curious but also hesitant; I have a lot of important data on my hard drives and losing any of it would be a disaster. I do keep it backed up for safety, but I still get nervous - backups can fail. PartitionMagic's box and manual proclaim that PartitionMagic can safely and easily partition your hard drive and protect your data without a hitch. Powerquest's website is replete with accolades and awards for PartitionMagic, but still - I was nervous. Nevertheless, I was curious and I knew the value of a good partitioning tool. Luckily, I can say that PartitionMagic easily lives up to its claims and is a good, safe tool that will make organizing and partitioning your hard drives a snap. PartitionMagic comes on a CDROM but is not auto-play enabled; you have to choose Run from the start menu and ask it to run the Setup program on the disk. Once up and running the installation itself is a snap; you are given choices about where to install the software and whether to install any of the accessory software (the Mover portion of Uninstaller). In addition to PartitionMagic and Mover, Drive Mapper and a shortcut to Powerquest's website are added to the Powerquest program group. The manual that comes with PartitionMagic is good but a little confusing; after telling you how to install the software it launches immediately into how to partition your hard drive, with no discussion about the interface or options in the software. One little item that is missing from the manual is the fact that PartitionMagic runs from DOS (with the exception of NT and OS/2) and requires 585k of conventional memory to run. If you have less than 585k, PartitionMagic won't run - period. For my system, I set up a custom config (thank you, Microsoft, for one of the few things you really got right with Windows 95) and off I went. Anyone familiar with a GUI interface will be able to quickly orient themselves with PartitionMagic's interface, although understanding all the information provided by the program will take some reading - reading of the manual that is. As I mentioned above, the manual is confusing at first, but after the introduction it quickly settles down into a thorough explanation of what PartitionMagic is capable of and how to do it. For example, PartitionMagic supports FAT, FAT32, NTFS, and HTFS file systems (for DOS, Windows95, NT, and OS/2 respectively) and explains, in detail, how to configure your system if you would like to run more than one operating system on the same computer. There are two major reasons to partition your hard drives (other than to operate two different OSes, something very few people do). First, it allows you to organize, having one partition for the OS, one for the applications, and one for data. This makes it much easier to find your documents or other important files. Secondly, it can save space, reducing the cluster size for the various partitions. PartitionMagic can do all of this on the fly without having to reformat the drive (which is what would be required if you wanted to do this from DOS). My system at home has two drives - the original 210 MB and the newer 820 MB drive. By partitioning the second larger drive into a application drive and a data drive, I saved about 50 MB of space. By then reducing the cluster size on the application partition, I was able to save an additional 100 MB of space. Yes, that's right - I saved a total of 150 MB of space. Anyone who doesn't find that amazing needs their head examined - especially after considering that all of this was done on the fly. Of course, this does change the drive lettering, a special concern on a system like mine with two hard drives, a CDROM drive, and a Zip drive. Once I exited Partition Magic and rebooted Windows 95, I ran the companion Drive Mapper software. Drive Mapper is a very powerful little utility that does one very simple thing - it searches the registry and drive path statements and can make the necessary changes very quickly. For example, I typed in that the F drive became the G drive, and a few minutes later it was done. Then I ran the same drill for changing the E drive to the F drive. Although no mention is made of this in the manual, I would highly advise you to start with the last drive and work backwards (if I did it the reverse, E would have been changed to F and then F to G - resulting in E becoming G). I saw no indication that Drive Mapper warned you of this possibility - so be careful! If you need to move an application to the new partition, Powerquest has included the Mover portion of Uninstaller. Using this tool, applications can be quickly and easily moved to the new partition, modifying drive paths and registry entries appropriately. PartitionMagic is a superb utility, an absolute must for everyone running a PC computer (especially those running some of today's larger drives). The software is easy to use, does what it claims, and appears to be very stable. Aside from the one little "bug" with Drive Mapper that I mentioned above, I was extremely impressed with this software. PartitionMagic deserves all of the awards that it has earned, and deserves something else even more: a place on your hard drive. Powerquest 1083 North State St Orem, UT 84057 (800) 379-2566 Email: magic@powerquest.com http://www.powerquest.com Installation: Gold User-friendliness: Gold Quality: Gold User: All 6=> Special Edition, Using Microsoft Office Professional 97, book/applications By Rick Winter & Patty Winter Reviewed By: Don Hughes, mailto:dhughes@wwdc.com MSRP: $39.99 USA/ $56.95 CAN. A new book "Using Microsoft Office Professional 97," by the Que Corporation continues their fine tradition of publishing high quality, easy to use guides for the computer industry. This book is a heavy weight containing over one thousand, twelve hundred and thirty-four pages, designed to be use as a desktop reference. However, there are hundreds of illustrations throughout that assist the reader in mastering the new Microsoft Office Professional 97. Que's "Using Microsoft Office Professional 97" is divided into eight chapters: 1. Features You will Only need to learn Once. 2. Using Word. 3. Using Excel. 4. Using Multimedia in Microsoft Office. 5. Using Power Point, Using Access. 6. Integrating Microsoft Office Applications 7. Internets-Intranets, and Workgroups. The authors cleverly use conventions in the margins of the book to aid the reader such as: A price tag (the best of 97) so one can quickly see the new office 97 features. * NOTE-paragraph format that indicates addition information to avoid problems * TIP paragraphs format to suggest methods of executing a procedure. * CAUTION a paragraph format warns the reader of hazardous procedure such as delete. * TROUBLESHOOTING-anticipate common problems...and then provide you with practical solutions. One should note that Using Microsoft Office 97 by Que, is not intended to be an instruction manual for Windows 95. To quote the authors "This book assumes that you are familiar with Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows NT, but not familiar with all the applications in the Office suite." Many leading software vendors, Microsoft, Corel, Lotus, have placed their core programs, word processing, spreadsheet, database, and presentation products into multi- packages or suites. Contained within the Microsoft Office Professional 97 software suite is: Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, Access, Bookshelf Basics, Office assistant, and Office Binder. Microsoft in Office 95 offered an application called "Schedule+" that was an appointment, to-do list, scheduling manager. Office 97 takes the organizational day- planner into the 90s with the additional new redesigned program called OutLook. They added such features as: unified e-mail address list, fax numbers for quick faxing, message management, calendar planning, meeting scheduling, to-do list management, and note taking. The user range of Outlook is very broad, plus it has the ability to handle: unformatted text, rich text format-- different fonts and colours, OLE, e-mail, faxes, and a contact manager. The authors compiled excellent section of the book "What's New with Office 97," explaining each of the suites new features listed per software program--word, excel, access, etc. Any reader who is familiar with the many functions of the early versions of office will find this chapter an invaluable resource. In Que's "Using Microsoft Office Professional 97", the process of naming and saving files, changing the font, size, type, and page layout are covered in great detail complete with screen shots to guide you. An example of the best of 97 (icon looks like price tag): Another form of highlighting is adding Text Borders. With Word 97, you can apply borders to selected text just as you do paragraphs or tables. First, select the text; then, use the Borders tool on the formatting toolbar to apply the border. You can also use the Format, Borders and Shading command to see all the new borders you can chose from. For more information on applying borders, see chapter 11, "Working with Tables & Borders." Another example shows how the authors anticipate and explain problem(s) one can encounter when working with Office 97 with their Troubleshooting tips: I have changed the font, font size, font style, and alignment of the selected text, and now I want to change the text back to its original formatting. Undo the formatting using the Undo drop-down list in the Standard toolbar. To remove formatting, you also can select the text first and then press CTRL+SHIFT+Z. Other topics covered in Office 97: * Create hyperlinks. * Navigate, publish your Intranet to the web. * Create professional documents and presentations. * Insert charts, graphics and video. * Create database and reports. * Customize office programs. * Examples. * Tips. * Troubleshooting. Que's "Using Microsoft Office Professional 97" covers every aspect of the new office version with easy to follow illustrations and plain English text--no difficult to comprehend terms. The well-placed Illustrations, Notes, Tips, Troubleshooting, the Best of 97, all deigned for ease of use by the experienced Office user and the novice. If you or your company has bought Office 97, you will find this book and invaluable resource to using the many features of the software package has to offer. This is one book you will use over and over to aid your successful mastering of Microsoft Office Professional 97. Que Corporation 201 W. 103rd Street Indianapolis, IN, 46290 USA 1-800-428-5331 http://mcp.com/que Readability: Gold Illustrations: Gold Quality: Gold Intended Audience: Experienced Office user to Novice. 8=> Clickables! The new CLICKABLES debuts next week! Stay tuned! +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= Managing Editor: Patrick Grote -- mailto:pgrote@i1.net Assistant Editor: Writer Liaison: Doug Reed-- mailto:dr2web@sprynet.com Archives: ftp://ftp.uu.net/published/compunotes/ Website: e-mail: mailto:notes@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)1997 Patrick Grote +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= END OF ISSUE