CompuNotes - We now have forums on the website! See below! Notes from The Cutting Edge of Personal Computing ISSN: 1525-4534 February 5, 2002 Issue 173 In this issue ... Search Engine Optimization, Reviews of Perfect Disk 2000, BullsEye Plus, Server Manager and Solve-It. +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= To subscribe, send an e-mail to compunotes-subscribe@topica.com To unsubscribe, send an e-mail to compunotes-unsubscribe@topica.com or send an e-mail to listserv@peach.ease.lsoft.com with the following SIGNOFF COMPUNOTES-L +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= CONTENTS 1=> Reminder about changes to CompuNotes ... By Patrick Grote, mailto:pgrote@compunotes.com 2=> This Issue's Winner! Articles: 3=> Top Tips from Some of the Best Search Engine Optimizers in the Business . . . Learn from the Pros in this Informative Article! By Robin R. Nobles, mailto:robin@robinsnest.com Reviews: 4=> Product: PerfectDisk 2000, v4.00.015 Reviewed By: William M Frazier, mailto:wfrazierusa@hotmail.com 5=> Product: BullsEye Plus v3 Reviewed By: Howard Carson, mailto:agitater@compunotes.com 6=> Product: Server Manager 4.0 Client/Server Reviewed By: Jim Huddle, mailto:jim.huddle@compunotes.com 7=> Product: SolveIT, The Financial Calculator v5.01 Reviewed by: Don Hughes, mailto:dha@primus.ca --- Why not suggest CompuNotes to a friend, family member or co-worker? You can win $10,000 and they have a chance to win each week with great information! Please click: http://www.recommend-it.com/l.z.e?s=864865 --- 1=> Reminder about CompuNotes' Changes, By Patrick Grote, pgrote@compunotes.com Just wanted to touch on a few things that have changed concerning CompuNotes in the year 2002: 1) You can help us grow! Forward a copy of CompuNotes to a friend that you think would like to read it. Put up a link to CompuNotes on your website. Mention articles you read in CompuNotes in online discussions. We appreciate each and every time you refer someone to CompuNotes. We wouldn't be here without a fantastic subscriber base! You can also click on the Recommend It link: http://www.recommend-it.com/l.z.e?s=864865 If you use the link you get a chance to win $10,000. 2) Advertising free. Except for CompuNotes promos, the newsletter is now advertising free. The website is also advertising free except for products or services that we personally use. We don't make any money off the banners or links you click on. The only exception to this is the Amazon link. If you like a review and want to buy a book through Amazon you can use the link. We get a few cents from each book bought through us. The money we make goes towards paying for some of the hosting and postage costs we incur. 3) We advertise for you. If you have a great website that will honestly help our readers, let us know. We'd love to include your banner on our site at no cost. 4) Contribute Your Knowledge or Opinion - We're always looking for new writers to review products and author great articles for our readers. Writing experience is not necessary and it's a great way to interact. 2=> Winner! This week's winner: Jeff Champlin! Would you like to win something just for subscribing? We give away a prize each and every week to one of our subscribers. Who knows, it could be you! You could win next week ... all you have to do is subscribe! 3=> Top Tips from Some of the Best Search Engine Optimizers in the Business . . . Learn from the Pros in this Informative Article! By Robin R. Nobles, mailto:robin@robinsnest.com (This is part one of a two part article. Part two will be published next week.) Have you ever wondered what types of strategies the top search engine optimizers use for their own sites or the sites of their clients? In an industry like the search engine industry, where no one can possibly know everything, it's important to learn from trusted experts in the field. So for this article, I interviewed some of the best SEO's in the business in an effort to share their winning strategies with you. Important facts about these tips Please remember that these tips aren't necessarily the fundamental strategies that should always be used when working on a Web page, such as including your keyword phrase in your title tag or capitalizing on headline tags or link text. Instead, many of these tips are meant to be applied to the top of the basic strategies in an effort to give you an edge over the competition. Also, these tips aren't in any particular order of importance. The first tip in any category isn't necessarily the most important, and the last tip certainly isn't the least important. I've identified each tip with the SEO who wrote it. Then, at the end of the article in alphabetical order, I highlighted the various SEO's who participated in this article, along with brief information about their qualifications. Enjoy these tips from some of the best SEO's in the business! Basics * Stick to the basics of search engine optimization for your existing Web pages (i.e. optimized titles, header content, keyword density, the order your text is presented in the code, etc.), before you move into supplementary techniques like doorway pages, doorway domains, and the like. The odds are that if you have not mastered the basic skills to optimize your existing Web pages, you are not going to be able implement supplementary techniques successfully. (J.K. Bowman with Spider Food http://www.spider-food.net) * My advice to everyone is always to remember the basic, simple things that have not changed rather than get lost in details that may change on a regular basis. I find that even very advanced people sometimes need a reminder of the basics to see the forest from the trees. (Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch http://www.searchenginewatch.com) Content * Focus on building useful "research content." Remember that the Internet is constantly being used for all types of research. Take advantage of this and develop content that will appeal to the people who are doing the research. What is it that people want to know? People are looking for "how to" articles, "inspirational" articles, reference material, financial advice, technical advice, comparison charts, phone numbers, historical information, serial numbers, and the list goes on and on. Don't just do up a general page on a topic. Do a little research. Talk to some real people and see what it is that fascinates a specific group. Look for a newsgroup and see what they talk about. From your research, try checking a few keywords in WordTracker. From WordTracker, you can discover trends that people are using to conduct research. If you have a garden center online, perhaps you'll want to build a content rich doorway page that offers detailed blue prints for building a birdhouse or an article on "How to attract hummingbirds to your garden," etc. If you have an online jewelry store, perhaps you'll want to offer articles on how to determine the real value of a diamond or a tutorial on Victorian gemstones. (John Alexander with Beyond-SEO.com http://www.beyond-seo.com/) * If your site makes heavy use of graphics and has no substantial real text content, this will severely impact your ability to get good search engine listings because there is nothing for the search engines to read when they index your Web site. You should consider redesigning some of your pages to include real text rather than graphical text. (Paul Bruemmer with Web Ignite http://www.web-ignite.com) * Customize content for each page. Every URL is a potential entry point. Keep content in the header tags focused and terse. Simplicity is so important in search engine optimization. (Marshall Simmonds with About.com http://www.about.com/) * Use cgi-based date scripts to keep the site fresh. (Ginette Degner with ServiceBrokers.com http://www.servicebrokers.com) Directories * Proper submission to the major directories is critical. One of the most significant changes in search engine marketing in recent years has been the rise in popularity of human-reviewed directories and catalogs like LookSmart, Yahoo, and Open Directory. Some search engines prominently display directory listings for many popular searches. MSN is a prime example. Some of the other major engines also list directory results prominently, or at least emphasize them in various ways. You can recognize directory listings since they are often called "Web Site" results rather than "Web Page" results. Once you submit to a directory, it's difficult to go back and correct mistakes later. Some of them like Yahoo and LookSmart charge you for the privilege of simply being reviewed for inclusion. Therefore, it's of utmost importance to get it right the first time. (Brent Winters with FirstPlace Software http://www.webposition.com) * Get listed with the human-powered directories of Yahoo, LookSmart and the Open Directory. If this is all you do, you'll get plenty of traffic. All either get lots of visitors or "power" other sites that get plenty of visitors. In addition, getting listed with them helps crawler-based search engines locate your site and perhaps help it rank better, because of the link importance these sites provide to you. (Danny Sullivan with Search Engine Watch http://www.searchenginewatch.com) Diversify * It's important to experiment and diversify your optimization strategies. The algorithms of each engine change frequently to keep content fresh -- so should your techniques. It is important to abide by all the rules and regulations as set forth by the engines to avoid spamdexing. (Marshall Simmonds with About.com http://www.about.com/) Due Diligence * First comes content, then optimizing your pages for the search engines, checking your HTML code, etc. Next comes the submission of your pages to the search engines. Possibly resubmit your older content, depending on ranking and various other factors. (Introduce at least some minor changes before you do.) Follow the rules of the craft. Later, check your logs daily. Learn how to recognize search engine spiders to see if your submissions were successful. Check out all search engine generated hits to determine: a) your ranking, b) what people are really searching for and finding you under -you may be in for a surprise or two on that score. (Ralph Tegtmeier, a.k.a. Fantomaster http://fantomaster.com/) * Read, read, read - learn the trade from scratch. Test out stuff - your mileage may vary immensely from the gurus' -every Web site is different, or, at least, should be. (Ralph Tegtmeier, a.k.a. Fantomaster http://fantomaster.com/) Frames, JavaScript, and Dynamic Delivery Systems * Framesets need NOFRAMES content added to the FRAMESET section. Also, sites using frames, image maps, or JavaScript navigation do not get properly indexed by search engines because the frame containing links to other pages within the site gets overlooked. A remedy for this is to create a redundant set of text links in as many of the frameset component pages as is practical, such as at the bottom of your main content page. (Paul Bruemmer with Web Ignite http://www.web-ignite.com) * Build crawler-friendly. Avoid using frames or dynamic delivery systems, and ensure that you have good internal linkage between your pages. (Danny Sullivan with Search Engine Watch http://www.searchenginewatch.com) * Consider putting your JavaScript in external files. This also will streamline your source code and make your pages load faster and more search engine friendly. (Bill Gentry with Look Sharp Designs - wgentry@lvcm.com) Keywords * Know what you want to be found for. You should know the top two or three terms that are most important to your Web site and have incorporated them into a 25-word description that doesn't use marketing hype, which can then be submitted to human-powered directories. You should also know a list of the top 10 to 100 terms you'd like to be found for and ensure that you have pages within your Web site with good, solid content for these terms to please the crawlers. (Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch http://www.searchenginewatch.com) * Don't make the mistake of picking the wrong keywords. Nothing is more disappointing than taking the time to achieve top rankings and then seeing no increase in traffic from all your efforts. Also, don't pick keywords that are too popular or broad like "games" or "entertainment." You'll not only get visitors that are far less likely to buy your product, but the amount of work needed to gain that ranking will not be worth the trouble. You'll then join the ranks of misinformed critics screaming "search engine optimization doesn't work - don't waste your time!" SE optimization works and works well, IF you take the time to do it right. (Brent Winters with FirstPlace Software http://www.webposition.com) * Research your search phrases. If you can, also check your referrer logs or other traffic tracking program to help you. If you don't have referrer logs, install a traffic tracking program such as Web Trends Live on your site and let it gather stats for you for a couple of months before you decide on your search phrases. A program such as this or your referrer logs will tell you which search phrases are currently bringing you search engine traffic. You might want to use some of these for your optimization, since you already know that people find you using these. Then, check your rankings for the search phrases that you researched from WordTracker, or other search phrase research tools, as well as those from your traffic tracking program or referrer logs. I suggest this because you may find that you are already doing fairly well with some phrases and you may not want to mess with those. (Bill Gentry with Look Sharp Designs - wgentry@lvcm.com) * Build focused pages around "real world" queries. Use phrases exactly how they are typed into a search engine, such as "How can I" and "Where can I." You will notice that sites with FAQ pages like this can end up garnering an awful lot of top placements and traffic. (Ginette Degner with ServiceBrokers.com http://www.servicebrokers.com) * Searching for the key phrase in Yahoo and noting the Yahoo Categories returned can suggest key themes and words useful to the site for optimization as well as showing the quantity and quality of the competition. (David Johnson and Annam Manthiram with Position Research http://www.positionresearch.com) * I like to thoroughly explore all possibilities when researching keyword phrases. I like to think of keyword phrases as "fuel" for specific topics. After much study using a resource like WordTracker (one of my favorite tools), I like to identify several "high performance" keyword phrases. Then I try not to simply settle for the first ideas that come to mind for how that topic might be employed. I try to "think outside of the box." Learn to develop topical content with a unique spin on it, always keeping the visitors in mind. In a nutshell, understand your visitors' demand for useful topics and then give them what it is they are seeking. Focus should not just be on how to get tons of general traffic to a page. Use page optimization strategies to create useful pages with content that is "in demand" by a target audience. When you start thinking this way, it has a wonderful compound effect on making actual sales or achieving your site objectives. Isn't this why you started a Web site in the first place? (John Alexander with Beyond-SEO.com http://www.beyond- seo.com/) * Check log files for user country location and most often used keywords in search engine search. This may demonstrate the need to offer the site in another language (or to provide a link to Alta Vista's Babelfish or the Lycos equivalent) if there are a lot of hits from another country. Knowing the keywords used to arrive at the site helps to decide on variations and changes to the site theme. (David Johnson and Annam Manthiram with Position Research http://www.positionresearch.com) * Did you know that the KEI Factor used in WordTracker is an excellent guideline to follow? According to WordTracker, an excellent keyword phrase has a KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index) of 400+. Are you having trouble finding appropriate phrases with high KEI factors? Try using one single word (appropriate for your site) in the "comprehensive search" feature. I very often extract excellent phrases with a KEI level well into the thousands or even into the hundreds of thousands. Always ensure that the search phrases you select are solidly related to site content. (John Alexander with Beyond-SEO.com http://www.beyond-seo.com/) Link Popularity * Submit to link popularity-based engines LAST after you have had a chance to build your inbound and outbound links up. (Ginette Degner with ServiceBrokers.com http://www.servicebrokers.com) * Examine your internal link structure carefully. Even for large Web sites, to the extent that it is possible, you want every Web page linking to every other page. Complex linking structures will work to your disadvantage. (J.K. Bowman with Spider Food http://www.spider-food.net) * Build links. Search for the top terms you want to be found for. Review the sites that come up. Visit those sites and ask the non- competitive ones if they'll swap links with you. These sites are important because the search engines themselves are telling you they are important, by ranking them highly. That means links from them can help you in link analysis systems. It also means that if these sites get visitors, you may get visitors who follow links out of them. (Danny Sullivan with Search Engine Watch http://www.searchenginewatch.com) * Link exchange with other like sites, and be sure to interlink your pages. (Rocky Rawstern) * Develop your inbound link popularity the old fashioned way, one link at a time. An investment of just 10 minutes per day to this with a personalized e-mail to Web site owners of similar and significant sites will produce immediate results. And you will never have to worry about the risk associated with link popularity programs. (J.K. Bowman with Spider Food http://www.spider-food.net) * Upgrade your site to an info hub by offering prime outgoing links - such as a search engine portal. This will help boost your site's ranking with the search engines. Contrary to popular opinion, linkage counts both ways, incoming and outgoing. Check out this free distributed search engine portal: http://searchenginebase.com/. The sign up page is here: http://searchenginebase.com/sbfreeportal0.html. Link to lots of useful sites not directly competing with yours. Request reciprocal links. Create more domains and interlink them all. Avoid mere link farms - there's a ongoing witch hunt targeting those currently. Also, check your linkage regularly. (Ralph Tegtmeier, a.k.a. Fantomaster http://fantomaster.com/) Make it a Game and Have Fun! * Make a game of it. I like to akin SEO to playing chess. It's a matter of thinking three steps ahead of your competition. For those who do this, the nip and tuck battle for the #1 spot can be quite fun. In fact, it's addictive! So, when you think about SEO, don't just think about it in terms how much money you might make. If you truly become interested in the art and competitive element of search engine optimization, you will be incredibly more successful. (J.K. Bowman with Spider Food http://www.spider- food.net) Remember to watch for part two next week! Robin Nobles is a professional freelance writer and the Director of Training of the Academy of Web Specialists, where she teaches online courses in search engine marketing strategies. http://www.academywebspecialists.com/more_info. She also teaches onsite search engine marketing workshops with John Alexander (http://www.beyond-seo.com/workshop.htm), and she has written three books that can be ordered through Amazon. Links to Robin's Books: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0761528423/qid=1012928730/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_3_1/102-3796987-3315313/compunotes/ http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1580623697/qid=1012928730/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_3_2/102-3796987-3315313/compunotes/ 4=> Product: PerfectDisk 2000, v4.00.015 Reviewed By: William M Frazier, mailto:wfrazierusa@hotmail.com Requires: Windows 9X, NT 4.0 or higher, 16 MB RAM, and files system FAT16, FAT32, or NTFS. MSRP: $44.00 If you believe in keeping your Windows computer system running at peak performance, you have probably used Microsoft's System Tools, ScanDisk and Disk Defragmenter. These are great, as far as they go, but sometimes it takes a magician to make them run right. If anything is running in the background, ScanDisk may never finish. Disk Defragmenter suffers from the same problem. You can boot your computer in Safe Mode to skirt it, but that is a poor workaround. In addition, the options included with Disk Defragmenter are very limited. You can ask the program to "Rearrange program files so they start faster" and "Check the drive for errors". A better answer could be PerfectDisk 2000, from Raxco Software, a Disk Defragmenter replacement. PerfectDisk 2000 will run on any computer system running the following Windows operating systems: Windows 95 (OSR2), Windows 98, Windows Millennium, Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows NT4 (SP3 or higher). Computers running the Win9X operating systems require a minimum of 16 MB of RAM although 64 MB is recommended. Systems running WinXP/2000/NT should have a minimum of 64 MB of RAM, 128 MB is recommended. When you first start PerfectDisk 2000 you see a deceptively simple interface. The very top of the interface includes the normal Menu and Icon tool bars. Below that, the left side of the window consists of a partition tree, similar to the directory tree found in Windows Explorer, but listing partitions instead of directories. To the right of the partition tree is a list of instructions for performing different operations, such as Analyzing a Disk, Optimizing a Disk, and Creating a Profile. PerfectDisk 2000 will locate and reassemble as a single piece every file on your hard drive. The program also consolidates free space on the hard drive for better disk performance. This can be especially important when streaming audio or video files or burning your own CDs. I made no special preparations the first time I ran PerfectDisk. I generally have numerous programs running at all times, including Norton AntiVirus, ZoneAlarm, Proxomitron, and two or three others. I started PerfectDisk and directed it to defragment the C partition of my hard drive, a total of 10GB, containing 8GB of files. The program took a total of 2 hours 20 minutes to complete the job. 605 files were defragmented and 8836 files were moved. I ran the program a week later on the same partition to see if it would run any faster. This time it completed the job in 36 minutes, defragmenting just 8 files and moving 3609 files. I was impressed that even with all the background programs running, PerfectDisk was able to complete its job. You may purchase PerfectDisk 2000 for the sole purpose of defragmenting your disk drives, but as you use it you will discover that the interface goes deeper than it appears at first glance. You can customize the defragmentation process through profiles, which allow you to schedule defragmentation to occur at a later time or at regular intervals, defragment a portion of a partition while excluding other parts, defragment several partitions at once, or limit defragmentation to only selected partitions. You can also schedule defragmentation across your network. Raxco uses a patented Smart Placement(tm), technology that determines where to place a file on your hard drive, depending on how frequently it's modified. I did have two minor problems with PerfectDisk. First, the documentation included on the CD-ROM was in PDF format. Unfortunately, Adobe Acrobat Reader (both versions 3 and 4) could not read it. The second problem involved the Statistics Screen that appears at the end of defragmentation. One of the buttons on the screen allows you to print. When you click the button, the Windows print dialog box appears. However, when you click OK to begin printing, nothing happens. You can retrieve the same information by going to the log file, but it seems like something may have been forgotten or overlooked. If you have trouble with, or dislike the Windows Disk Defragmenter, try PerfectDisk 2000. At $44.00 the cost is reasonable. It works will even with a Virus scanner working in the background. (Ed.Note: We still recommend you close all programs before running any disk utilities). Raxco Software PerfectDisk 2000 http://www.raxco.com/products/perfectdisk2k/ 5=> Product: BullsEye Plus v3 Reviewed By: Howard Carson, mailto:agitater@compunotes.com Requires: Windows 98/ME, Windows 2000 & NT 4.0 (SP6 or later); Pentium 300MHz or faster; Microsoft Internet Explorer v5.01 SP1 or later MSRP: US$49.99 (download) BullsEye Plus is a moderately intelligent Web search tool and search information manager aimed at semi-professionals, student researchers, teachers, online consumers and info pack rats. It's simple enough to use and is designed to save time and effort for people who are searching for or researching specific information or gathering comprehensive news. BullsEye Plus incorporates SurfSaver, a browser add-on from ASKSAM Systems which lets you store web pages into searchable folders on your computer. We installed and tested BullsEye Plus on a PIII/550MHz machine with 256MB RAM running Windows 2000 Professional and Internet Explorer 6. Installation was flawless and placed a BullsEye button on the Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer toolbars. BullsEye Plus uses IE or Netscape as its browser and search results are displayed in its integrated browser view, with Fwd, Back, Stop, and Refresh options. There are three viewing layouts to select from: a results list, results browser, and a split window with results list on top and a Web browser below. We also tried using BullsEye Plus in Netscape 6 on a PIII/650 running Windows ME but the results were somewhat unstable. Ditto for an AMD Athlon-based machine running Windows XP. We did some comparison searches using BullsEye head-to-head with Google (via the IE6 Google Toolbar). A search for "Sex education under 16" (with the "Kid-Safe" flag set in BullsEye Plus) yielded 17 hits with no sex education information at all. The same search in Google yielded over 100 hits which refined down to 9 directly relevant sites. "Project management theories" yielded almost identical results in BullsEye and Google. "Buy a Cisco 1601R Router" yielded more comprehensive sources via BullsEye. "Game theory bush" yielded more numerous, varied and interesting hits in Google. There are a few usability problems with BullsEye Plus. Task buttons in the management pane on the left side of its UI jump to the bottom of the pane whenever you select a different task. Intelliseek's design idea, I think, is to always keep the active task button immediately above the category list. It's visually distracting however. Simply highlighting the active task button would prevent things from dancing around and moving out of an easy-to-hit location. The ability to save successful searches is great, but it would be greater if you could organize the saved searches into categories. There are some really useful features in BullsEye Plus. Foremost is the Report Generator which can be used to generate HTML reports, without ads and banners if you prefer, containing a search history for a particular session, hit/page summaries, local Web pages, related links, and the relevant search engines used. Nice - and a great addition to any research report to facilitate due diligence and fact checking. You can save reports to disk or send them via e-mail. The Analysis feature does a good job of purging dead and duplicate links from search results - very nice indeed. Multi-language searching opens up a huge, relatively untapped resource (at least untapped by most North American Internet users). It's a big world and Intelliseek seems to understand the value of looking beyond U.S. English sites and search engines. Also very nice. Cons: Use IE 5 or later because BullsEye Plus v3 doesn't get along nicely with earlier browser versions. Netscape can be somewhat problematic. You're limited to 3 open searches at any one time, which is somewhat irritating because you constantly have to save or discard existing searches. The current UI looks like a hybrid of Outlook and something else I haven't quite figured out yet. There are several task and function buttons in BullsEye Plus which don't do anything except call a popup window telling you that you've clicked on something available only in BullsEye Pro and that an upgrade is only a few clicks away. This is annoying! So is the Persistent Highlighting feature which unfortunately highlights innumerable words unrelated to your searches. Intelliseek touts BullsEye Plus, variously, as a professional research tool and a research tool for students and teachers. It's not a professional tool and we'd like to see Intelliseek refine its product descriptions. Pros: Major search engine access (800+ engines). There's a link in the Help menu which can be used to suggest new search engines to Intelliseek. The Analysis feature will save you lots of time which would otherwise be wasted chasing dead and/or duplicate links. One-stop 'shop' for basic organization and storage of research. The Report Generator will enhance most basic research reports and projects. We're not sure if BullsEye Plus is worth fifty bucks, but it works and provides basic level of organizational and reporting functions. For more serious, professional research, BullsEye Pro is a much better bet even though it's also much pricier (US$199). Intelliseek BullsEye Plus v3 Product Web Site: http://www.intelliseek.com/prod/bullseye/bullseye.htm 6=> Product: Server Manager 4.0 Client/Server Reviewed By: Jim Huddle, mailto:jim.huddle@compunotes.com Requires: NetWare 4.11 with SP 5 (or newer), 4.2, 5.x, 6.0 (beta), Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP, Novell NetWare client version 2.50 (Windows 9x), 4.60 (Windows NT) or newer. MSRP: US$595.00 (single server), $525 each (2-4 servers), etc. Standard version available - check the web site. If you are a NetWare administrator, Server Manager is one of those utilities you have always wished Novell would have bundled with the OS. It's clean, the interface is simple and easy to navigate and the wealth of information is gratifying. The base product installs on a Windows client box. When you first access a server, the app will ask to install and load a couple of NLMs. The NLMs have a pretty small footprint and I've run them on both 5.1 and 6.0 without incident. Note that the current version isn't certified for NetWare 6. But I only found a couple of things that needed tweaking for NetWare 6 compatibility, most notably the reported memory in use and available cache buffers. Server Manager over-reports memory used on my 6.0 server. Beyond that, everything else I've looked at has been right on the money. Once the NLMs are loaded you are presented with the config screen. Note that Information/General is similar to what you'll find in Monitor, but also includes network addresses with ports, web servers, and the portal server's IP addresses and ports. From the config screen you can also drill down into your devices, memory, network stats and LAN drivers. There's another section with detailed information on a number of stats and you can view and set server parameters and edit both server and dos startup files, as well as view log files. Server Manager also performs a particularly neat trick. Many of the items you can see, can be dragged to the Server Monitor window and turned into a real time graph. You can even change the graph's size and display properties. There are five other menu bar selections. Active shows who and what is logged in. Clicking the plus sign next to the connection shows what files the connection has open. Double clicking on a user connection will also give you a graph in the lower portion of the Server Manager window showing the bytes read and written, requests, opened files, disk usage and more. The Opened menu bar tab shows open files and who is using them. The NLM tab shows all running NLMs and tells you name, version and date description. It also shows you total memory used by the NLM and then breaks it down by code, static and dynamic data. You can sort on every field. The Disk tab gives you an Explorer-like window showing mounted volumes. At the bottom you get a pie graph showing volume stats. You can right click on folders and files and perform Explorer functions as well as view and set NetWare attributes. You can even set the owner of a folder and have it change ownership status below that folder as well. The Utilities tab is where you can install Adrem's virus software and what they call a console extender. What lit me up was the Events scheduler. It's like a cron without the fuss. Repeated actions are easy to add and very configurable. Server Manager also includes a remote console feature. It's quick, but be warned it does not require input of another password, so it's not too secure. The console window is quick, easily resizes and once you see it, you'll have an idea where Novell's IP console got it's look. This is a great product for quick information and in my mind essential for troubleshooting. It's what Novell's portal service could be and may be one day. Adrem Software Server Manager 4 Product Web site: http://www.adremsoft.com/sm/index.htm 7=> Product: SolveIT, The Financial Calculator v5.01 Reviewed by: Don Hughes, mailto:dha@primus.ca Requires: Microsoft Windows 95/98/2000/ME or Windows NT 4, hard drive with 6MB of free space, Pentium or greater processor MSRP: Price $89.95 in stores or $69.95 purchased on the web site Occasionally, while mining the Internet one finds a true Gem of a program. Pine Groves' SolveIT Financial Calculator is one of those rare software finds and a priceless tool for anyone needing to do different kinds of financial calculations. If you're working in real estate, banking, insurance, or accounting, are a large or small business owner, investment broker, high school or university student, mathematics teacher, new car buyer, or even just a home owner needing to compare mortgage rates, you need SolveIT. Pine Grove's SolveIT is a collection of thirty-three types of financial calculators, arranged into six group types: Financial, Schedules, Depreciation, Advisors, Loans, and General Business. Within each group you can do the following calculations: Financial Calculators - Compound/Simple Interest, Equivalent Rate, Interest Rate Earned, Internal Rate of Return (IRR), Net Present Value, Payment Required, Present Value of an Amount (PV); Schedules - Amortization, Annuity, Future Value, Present Value of a Series (PV), Rental Analysis; Advisors - Break Even Point, Lease vs. Buy, Loan Comparison, Refinance; Loan Calculators - Accelerated Payment, Affordable House, Balloon Payment, Loan, Remaining Balance, Second Mortgage; Depreciation Calculators - Declining Balance Depreciation, MACES, Straight Line Depreciation, Sum of Years Depreciation; General Purpose Calculators - Bond Value and Yields, Budget, Economic Ordering Quantity, Gross Profit, Net Worth, Purchasing Power, Weighted Average. One does not need to be a mathematics wizard to use SolveIT, as most of the calculations are simply a matter of filling the blanks. Using any section of SolveIT is simply a matter of looking under any of the six menu listings displayed on the screen and clicking the appropriate button. The program is very user friendly. For example, to calculate the interest on a $20,000.00 loan, the user enters the amount, current interest rate, payment period (weekly, biweekly, monthly) into the on screen fields. Click on the CALC button and the results appear instantly on the screen. In addition, you can hit the print button to create a hard copy using your printer, which is very handy for comparing loans, rates, and different payment schedules. Visit Pine Groves web site for more in depth information on SolveIT. Download a demo copy and try this superb financial calculator on your computer system. Pine Grove also has versions of their loan programs available for DOS and Windows 3.1 users. The demo runs for a twenty-one day evaluation period. After the evaluation period expires the user must contact Pine Grove software to receive a key to unlock and register SolveIT. The code is good for one use only and if you upgrade your computer, add memory or change the hard drive, you will need to contact Pine Grove for another code to re-register the software. Yes, having to register the software again can be a pain, but one cannot fault Pine Grove for wanting to protect their program from piracy. Look no farther for great financial calculation tools to help compare mortgages, save money on loans or simply help make your investments grow. Visit Pine Groves web site and purchase a copy of SolveIT. Pine-Grove Software SolveIT, The Financial Calculator v5.01 Product Web site: http://www.pine-grove.com/SolveIT/ +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= Publisher / Senior Editor: Patrick Grote, mailto:pgrote@compunotes.com Senior Editor: Howard Carson, mailto:agitater@compunotes.com Managing Editor: Don Hughes, mailto:don.hughes@compunotes.com Archives: ftp://ftp.compunotes.com/archives Website: e-mail: mailto:feedback@compunotes.com Want to Write for Us?: mailto:agitater@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! 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