SIXTEEN BITS April 1999 1 Features 8 Style Writer - a review Andrew Geraghty gives us a stylish review 10 An Internet Discussion Wayne Corbin tells the history 16 Easy Email Terry Bibo shows us how easy it can be 17 You want What ?!? John Plumidis convinces his family 18 Ockham’s Razor Start of a new series by Owen Cook 20 @law - The Taxman Cometh The legal aspects explained by Geoff Purvis-Smith 21 The Rosetta Page Don Nicol philosophises 22 CD ROM Column Nick Thompson reviews a selection of software 25 CGI Scripting Owen Cook continues his series on programming 26 Wow! Toys from Santa Glenn Pure has a late Christmas 30 Bits and Bytes Have a laugh with Andrew Clayton 31 Puzzle Page Exercise the old grey cells with Vic Bushell 32 Software Library News Phil Trudinger reviews a selection of Software 38 What’s News Malcolm Morrison keeps up with the lates 2 Editorial Information How to contribute to Sixteen Bits 3 Contact Information How to contact us 4 Editorial Anne Greiner 4 President’s Letter Anne Greiner 5 Letters From our readers... 7 Membership Notes Mike Burke with information for new members 40 Internet Project Application Get connected with TIP 41 Member Services Details of services available to members only 42 Special Interest Groups Where the real action is 43 Training News Low cost training for members 44 Vendor Discounts Membership has its privileges 46 Members’ Ads/PCUG Membership form Check here first for bargains 47 Help Directory Stuck? Call the experts 48 Calendar What’s on next month This month in PCUG News & Services Advertiser & Product Information 9 Interact 11 AB&T Systems 12 Context 14 L & S 15 Bettowynd 44 Vendor Discount Scheme Profile
Transcript
SIXTEEN BITS April 1999 1
Features
8 Style Writer - a reviewAndrew Geraghty gives us a stylish review
10 An Internet DiscussionWayne Corbin tells the history
16 Easy EmailTerry Bibo shows us how easy it can be
17 You want What ?!?John Plumidis convinces his family
18 Ockham’s RazorStart of a new series by Owen Cook
20 @law - The Taxman ComethThe legal aspects explained by Geoff Purvis-Smith
21 The Rosetta PageDon Nicol philosophises
22 CD ROM ColumnNick Thompson reviews a selection of software
25 CGI ScriptingOwen Cook continues his series on programming
26 Wow! Toys from SantaGlenn Pure has a late Christmas
30 Bits and BytesHave a laugh with Andrew Clayton
31 Puzzle PageExercise the old grey cells with Vic Bushell
32 Software Library NewsPhil Trudinger reviews a selection of Software
38 What’s NewsMalcolm Morrison keeps up with the lates
2 Editorial InformationHow to contribute to Sixteen Bits
3 Contact InformationHow to contact us
4 EditorialAnne Greiner
4 President’s LetterAnne Greiner
5 LettersFrom our readers...
7 Membership NotesMike Burke with information for new members
40 Internet Project ApplicationGet connected with TIP
41 Member ServicesDetails of services available to members only
42 Special Interest GroupsWhere the real action is
43 Training NewsLow cost training for members
44 Vendor DiscountsMembership has its privileges
46 Members’ Ads/PCUG Membership formCheck here first for bargains
SIXTEEN BITS is a unique and powerfulmedium for reaching the thoughtful decisionmakers in the ACT area. Our circulation exceeds3500 copies each month, with multiple readershipexceeding 4800. Many copies are retained bymembers for future reference. The advertisingdeadline is normally the first Friday of the monthof publication.
Advertising options include
• Cover ads
• Display ads
• Special inserts
• One-off mailing listsRegular advertisers receive discount vouchers topay for any future advertising with SIXTEENBITS (subject to account being in order). Every12th consecutive ad placed is free. Please contactthe Advertising Manager, Brian Thomason, on(02) 6295 2423 for further information.
SIXTEEN BITS (ISSN 0817-0991)is published monthly by the
PC Users Group (ACT) IncPO Box 42
Belconnen ACT 2616Australia
We welcome submissions of articles from membersof the Group. If you are interested in writing pleasecontact the Managing Editor and ask for a copy ofour ‘SIXTEEN BITS - Guidelines for Authors’ (alsoavailable on the Sixteen Bits Web site ath t t p : / / w w w. p c u g . o rg . a u / p c u g / 1 6 b i t s /16guide.htm).
Correspondence and material for review orpublication should be forwarded, preferably as aplain text file with separate PCX/BMP graphic files,by the deadline specified, to the Editor as follows:
• By email to [email protected]• By fax to (02) 6253 4922• By mail to the Centre’s address above.
Anonymous contributions will not be published,though name and address can be withheld frompublication on request. Disks are not returnedunless requested by the author.
Members of the PC Users Group (ACT) Inc receiveSIXTEEN BITS each month. Registered by AustraliaPost, Print Post Publication No. PP226480/00009.
Disclaimer:Although it is editorial policy to check all material inSIXTEEN BITS for accuracy, usefulness and suitability,no warranty either express or implied is offered for anylosses due to the use of the material in the journal. Unlessspecifically stated otherwise, the experiences andopinions expressed in any column or article are those ofthe author and do not represent an official position of,or endorsement by, the PC Users Group (ACT) Inc. ThePC Users Group (ACT) Inc is not liable for inaccuracy inany advertisement and does not accept responsibilityfor any claims made by advertisers. It is the buyer’sresponsibility to investigate the claims made byadvertisers. Any material considered misleading orinappropriate will be withheld at editorial discretion.Names of hardware, software and other products offeredon a commercial basis may be registered names andtrademarks of the vendors concerned. SIXTEEN BITSuses such names only in an editorial fashion and to thebenefit of the trademark owners, with no intent ofinfringement of the trademark.
Contributors for this issueMike Burke, Anne Greiner,
Malcolm Morrison, Phil Trudinger,Victor Bushell, Tamsin Sowden, Peter Elliott,
Ann Byrne, Don Nicol, Andrew Clayton,Geoff Purvis-Smith, Terry Bibo, Owen Cook,Andrew Geraghty,Wayne Corbin, Glenn Pure,John Plunidis, Nick Thompson, Greg Baker
Authors and Advertisers please note
Articles from SIXTEEN BITS are also publishedon the Internet as Sixteen Bits Online at http://www.pcug.org.au/pcug/16bits/
Material published on the Web and broadcast onradio is subject to copyright law and reproductionin any form without permission of the editor andthe author is prohibited. If however you, as anauthor, object to publication of your material onthe Internet or on radio for any reason, you mustcontact the Editor to request that your articles beomitted from the online version.
The phone numbers listed above are home numbers unless otherwisespecified. Please restrict calls to between 7.30pm and 9.00pm.
How To Make Contact*Postal address
PO Box 42Belconnen ACT 2616(For ALL correspondence)
J PC Users Group CentreNorthpoint Plaza, BelconnenOpen Mon, Wed and Fri 10am-2pmSaturdays and Sundays 9am-5pm(closed long weekends)
The PCUG Centre is the venue for PCUG training, some Special InterestGroup meetings and other activities. There is no charge for using the Centrefor PCUG activities. Contact Petra Dwyer at the PCUG Centre on(02) 6253 4911for bookings.
(PCUG Main Phone number(02) 6253 4911(Answering machine when Centre unattended)
Main MeetingMain meetings are held 7.00pm for 7.30pm, usually on the last Monday ofevery month at Manning Clark Theatre 1, Crisp Building Australian NationalUniversity.
New Members� Information Night7.30pm first Monday of the month PC Users Group Centre, Northpoint Plaza Belconnen.
4 SIXTEEN BITS April 1999
:
Anne GreinerPresident�s LetterPresident�s Letter
Anne Greiner, Managing Editor
Editor�s Desk TopEditor�s Desk Top
continued on page 5 …
Over the last several months, I have comeacross a number of incidents, rangingfrom the very minor and quite funny,
to several incidents that were much moreserious, and which have impacted upon themicrocosm of the PCUG as a whole, and uponvarious individual members, and on peopleoutside the group.
At the more innocuous end of the scale issituation of the granddad (who shall be namelessto protect him from the guffaws of his peer group)with whom I was chatting the other day.Grandson, aged seven, came to visit and said,“Grandpa, can I play with your computer?”Grandpa, knowing the little brute was computerliterate with a PC at home, and deep inconversation with the infants parents, absentmindedly agreed.
Three hours later, long after the departureof small brute and its parents, when Grandpawanted to logon and collect his mail, he found acompletely unrecognisable machine. The outerbits looked the same, but this Gatesoid enfant
terrible had changed the wallpaper andscreensaver from the Impressionist paintingsGrandpa liked to some sort of animated insects,changed all the Windows colour schemes,changed the screen themes to the Win 95 WildAnimals theme, and the final and unforgivableinsult, had changes the cursor arrow to ajellyfish. This last seemed to be the worst sinof all, and I must admit to a discrete chuckleor two whilst Grandpa was making me coffeein the kitchen and I was reversing the ravagesand restoring ‘proper’ arrows to the cursorand van Gough to the screensaver. Grandpa isnow worried that there may be more changesthat weren’t immediately obvious, and that mayjump out and ambush him in an unsuspectingmoment.
Now, whilst all of this is probably not thehanging offence that Grandpa thinks it is(Anklebiter is in serious doubt of hisinheritance), it highlights the fact that the partof child rearing that is supposed to equip thelittle dears to emerge politely into the worldhas not until very recently included among
“don’t eat with your mouth full”, “don’t pickyouir nose in public”, the edict “don’t changethe settings on some one else’s computer,particularly someone over 40, as they may notknow how to fix it. (I do have to own up hereto having changed the default beep on my PCto a .wav file saying “You iiidiot!” with thespecific purpose of annoying my sons, withwhom I was having a serious demarcationdispute about who used my PC and when.
Grandpa’s inability to restore his PCsettings is, like Grandma’s inability to programthe remote for the VCR, is amusing on thesurface, but the concepts behind it are not, andI suspect that we as a society are still strugglingto define the rules for polite electronicinteraction with one another. Sending a rudeemail to someone is one thing - sending thesame rude email to someone and all their friendsand workmates is harassment. If the samecommunication were on paper, it would becalled a poison pen letter, and is all the worsefor being so widely and easily distributed.People who would not dream of riffling through
I am very fond of the spell checker in Word. Itallows me to present a brave and passablyliterate face to the world. I know how to spell,in fact I spell very well, but my fingers let medown with their less than professional attitudeto the keyboard. A good friend brought me alovely little present from the V & A in London..It is a small framed picture of Pooh Bear witha quote from A A Milne, saying “My spellingis wobbly. It’s good spelling but it wobbles andthe letters get in the wrong places.” I knowexactly how Pooh feels. Spell checkers aregreat things - spelling is either right or wrong -but grammar is not quite so well defined, andas for style, who can say. I can remember atUni disputing vigorously my tutor’s attemptsto change my writing style. Maybe I shouldhave listened more closely.
I am feeling a little nervous about writinganything this month, having included Andrew
Geraghty’s review of Style Writer which is apiece of software that claims to know muchmore about writing than I do, and the depressingthing is, it may well be right. I don’t know thatI’m strong enough to deal with it if I’m eversilly enough to load it. I have enough troublewith Word 97 which has the temerity to makepointed comments about the length of mysentences, and my use of the passive voice. Itshould know that I am never passive aboutanything, and there it goes, making valuejudgements all over the place. I even hadsecond thoughts about a couple of innocuouslittle split infinitives when I was writing thePresident’s letter, and then was annoyed withmyself for allowing it to influence me. I suspectthat I will not load it and then I will be muchhappier, not feeling that it is looking over myshoulder and saying, “Tsk, tsk.”
There was a lovely harvest of articles thismonth from members, including a couple Icould not fit in, but will include next month, butmy favourite one has to be the one from JohnPlumidis (page 17). Parents, if you thought youwere being manipulated, this is how it was done.Might have to get him to do another one on
“Ten things I can do on the Net of which mymother would positively approve.” (There’sthat wretched Style Writer kicking in again atthe mere risk of a split infinitive, and I don’teven have it on my PC!). John ran a verysuccessful Games SIG last year, and is planninganother set of sessions in the training roomthese coming school hols. It’s good to see suchan age range in the active members of thegroup. Check out his article for phone numbersetc.
Speaking of age differences, this year isthe year of the older person, and the cartoonin Bits and Bytes celebrates the venturing backinto space of John Glen. If he can do it, byGod, so can the rest of us. I for one, am inspiredby his example.
So, keep writing, yo’all - I appreciate thevariation in style as much as I appreciate thevariation in the authors’ photographs thataccompany the articles . J
SIXTEEN BITS April 1999 5
:
Main MeetingMain MeetingGuest Speaker: Kimberly Heitman, EFADate: 29 March 1999
From theCommitteeFrom theCommittee
Excerpts from the February Committee Meeting:
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
:Anne Greiner
continued from page 4…
Note that these exerpts are always from the previous month - these minutes they aretaken from have been confirmed by the committee.
Kimberley Heitman is the Chairman.ofEFA, Electronic Frontiers AustraliaInc. is a non-profit national
organisation formed to protect and promotethe civil liberties of users and operators ofcomputer basedcommunications systems.EFA was formed in January1994 and incorporatedunder South Australian lawin May 1994.
Its major goals are toadvocate the amendment oflaws and regulations inAustralia and elsewhere(both current and proposed)which restrict free speech and unfetteredaccess to information and to educate thecommunity at large about the social, political,and civil liberties issues involved in the use ofcomputer based communications systems.
“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”(“Who watches the watchmen?”)
- Juvenal, Satires, VI, 347EFA has the honour of serving an aspiration
both timeless and immediate in working forfreedom for the Internet. It is a timeless
aspiration because the defence of liberty is adaily endeavour, history demonstrating thatfreedoms lost are hard to regain. It is animmediate aspiration because for the first timethe global Internet offers all people the right to
communicate withoutinterference, andgovernments have the chanceto embody Internet freedomsinto law, custom and practicefor generations to come.EFA is the Australianvolunteer voice for freedomon the Internet. On ashoestring budget, withoutpaid staff or business
premises, EFA has led campaigns withinAustralia and overseas. Given the limitedunderstanding of politicians and bureaucratsregarding Internet issues in 1994, EFA can bejustifiably proud of achieving a change inGovernment opinion in relation to censorship,ISP liability and telecommunications policies,and widespread support for EFA’s viewsamong key stakeholders and the general public.
:
LettersLetters
The PCUG Committee met on Monday8th February.
The Executive reported on a meeting with“Senior Net” They are interested in joiningthe group as a ‘organisation’, there were somereservations that legally they are not anorganisation and it was decided to hold offmaking a decision until the position could beclarified
Internet Report:Michael Lightfoot to look at the TIP
infrastructure and draw up options for a longterm strategy on replacement of equipment
10% of the members are still havingconnection problems with the AS5300. TheIPMC is continuing to work with Telstra andalso to check its own logs to try and isolate theproblem.
Letters of agreement for the withdrawal ofAUUG from TIP have been drawn up, thereare a few minor amendments to be made beforesubmitting to our solicitors for final approval.
David Schwabe moved that approval begiven to purchase an internal LS120 drive forthe CD burner machine up to a cost of $225.Seconded and approved.
Dear EditorI subscribe to a mailing list which gets me
about 90 messages a day. Its theme is a marqueof car so those posting messages are unlikelyto be internet buffs who play in the Internet sandpit all day every day.
The subscribers simply use the Internet asa medium to exchange material. The list is basedin the USA so most of the input is from there,even though the marque of car is British.
The “List Police” stamp on anyone gettingoff theme with their postings but occasionallyone sneaks through. This one was a comment,form the US, by a chap who had updated hiscomputer and modem from, I suspect, 22,800to 56k V90. He was disappointed that he onlyachieved rates of mid 30,000 with his newarrangement and asked for others’ experiences.
…more letters on page 6
someone’s desk, will cheerfully hack intoelectronic files, and even download (steal)them.
The PCUC Committee has discussed thesematters at length after several recent incidentsinvolving members of our group, and are inthe process of formulating some definitivepolicies on top of the ‘Acceptable Use Policy’that every member of TIP signs when they join.Pro tem we have decided that in the case ofabusive email, we will advise the recipient tonotify the AFP if the matter is seriouslyoffensive, and that PCUG will co-operate fullywith the AFP in identifying offenders. We willnot notify individuals of any identities that maycome to light, but our TIP admin staff will, withthe full support of the committee, immediatelyterminate the access of anyone found behavingin a manner unacceptable to the group.Electronic rules and manners are really not sodifferent to those welearnt as youngsters, soplease consider -
6 SIXTEEN BITS April 1999
The deluge of comments passed after abouttwo days of postings but it left me amazed athow poor the average Internet connections arein the USA, where we think everything issweetness and light.
Very few were getting connections above44,000 and a great many much less. This wastrue of both city and country people. Many ofthe ISPs had not advanced to even one of thetwo Kflex protocols, let alone V90. Frequentfailed connections and cut offs seem to beaccepted as inevitable
There was only one reply from a cable userand he said it was useless and he had goneback to the standard telephone arrangement.Many had called in Bell telephone to checklines to be told that what they had was as goodas it was going to get.
One such response from Bell led one chapto investigate a junction/distribution box on theoutside of his house, which he found to be fullof spiders. After a spray of insecticide,followed by a spray of WD40, his speed wentup 10k!!!
In summary, while we may be paying morethan the Americans for the Internet I believewe get as good, or better, a service technically.
I have a bit to do with people in the UKvia the Internet and contact is very much a hitand miss affair with frequent lengthy delayswhile email is bounced back due to failedhardware there.
How about we whinge less and count ourblessings. Thank you TIP.
Dear Editor,I applaud your magazine for publishing
Ockham’s Razor last month. It is about timethat the question of participatory democracy
vs proportional representation should bedebated. My thanks go to the author of thearticle for a lucid, plausible and persuasiveargument for the need to restrain the “tyrannyof the majority”.
In my opinion, however, the article fails toaddress two important issues:
History is full of the drama that follows uponthe mismanagement of change. From themyoptics who refuse to recognise theinevitability of change (eg “Let them eat cake”);through those who would seek to resist theinevitability of change (eg the Luddites); tothose who would seek to have change servetheir own self-interest. There is a fourthcategory: those who would seek to harnesschange for the good of all humanity. It hasbeen history’s unfortunate experience that thisfourth category has an expensive price-tag.
I feel that Robyn Williams has accuratelypredicted the inevitability of participatorydemocracy. It is, however, my opinion thatresistance to this change is futile. The rise inpopularity of radical movements is clearindication that there are a lot of (eg) Australianswho consider that proportional representation.is not doing a good job. Ockham’s Razor doesnot draw attention to this. I put it to you thatthe failure to recognise a personal need to actis an exercise in apathy that each of us have aduty to avoid (ie while resistance is futile,guidance is imperative).
The second failing of the article is that itleaves the ball suspended in mid air. Thereare too few people in this world with the visionto accurately predict the course of humanevolution. Those who have this ability have aduty and responsibility to keep the ball inmotion. I believe that the solution to the dramaof change is the initiation of good and healthydebate followed by the performance of actionwhich is equitable and just. Ockham’s Razorhas initiated the debate. Let it not die there. I,
Dear EditorThank you very much for the article on
multiple profile settings in Netscape 4.5. Untilnow, I have been operating out of Canberrafor some months using two versions ofNetscape to get around the problem of twointernet provider addresses. However, youshould have warned me: finding the NetscapeUser Profile Manager took me half a day! Forsome reason my computer has it stored atC:\WIN95\Start Menu\Programs\NetscapeCommunicator\Utilities. What a mouthful! Alsothanks for the article on the Office97 bugs.However, you should have warned me again:it took about five hours to download the fixesSR-1, SR-2, and sr1off97.exe. Thanks for agreat magazine. Together with ComputerChoice, I find Sixteen Bits the most, if not theonly, reliable and informative print magazine.
Dear EditorSubject: Pickled-Pepper PickersO K, I give up. Can I please have the “elegantsolution” to the problem. (See your commentspage 27 of March ’98 Sixteen Bits)
Welcome to new members readingSixteen Bits for the first time,welcome to the PC Users Group.
Continuing members should also check thiscolumn regularly because I am sure that therewill be some little surprises from time to time,even for the most jaded of old hands.
Your Membership CardYour membership card and, for new members,a New Member’s Information Disk, willnormally be mailed to you on the third Mondayof the month in which you join or renew yourmembership. Those who join or renew afterthe third Monday will receive their card/diskthe following month. If you lose your card,please leave a message with the ExecutiveSecretary on 6253 4911, or contact medirectly via TIP [email protected] and it willbe replaced without charge..
Information DiskNew members should also receive a diskcontaining information about the Group and itsservices. Please read the inform-ation on thedisk carefully as you will find the answers tomost of your questions there.
New Members�Information Night
New members are especially urged to attenda New Members’ Information Night which is
If your PCUGmembership expires atthe end of April 1999
RENEW NOWto avoid losing access to
The Internet Project.
Next New Members’ Night
5 April 19997.30pm
PCUG CentreNorthpoint Plaza, Belconnen
to attend Main Meetings regularly, membersshould make every effort to attend this Meetingat which office bearers for the ensuing 12months are elected.
Other Good StuffFor those who haven’t yet learnt through bitterpersonal experience, please remem-ber thatTIP access is dependent on your continuingPCUG membership, and that it takes time toprocess your membership renewal - currentlyup to two weeks. We are looking at ways toreduce this time, but the best solution is foryou to remember to renew early. Members,particularly TIP users, whose PCUGmembership expires at the end of the monthstated in the above box should renew theirPCUG membership immediate-ly. Do notdelay because your TIP access willautomatically be cut off at midnight on the lastday of the month unless your renewal has beenprocessed.Don’t forget! RENEW TODAY , if notyesterday, if this copy of Sixteen Bits arrivedwith a pink label.As a further service, one month before yourmembership is due to expire, I will send areminder letter with a renewal form on thereverse. This letter, printed on paper of avery noticeablecolour, should arrive a day orso before Sixteen Bits.
normally held at 7.30pm on the first Mondayof the month (except Jan-uary) at the PC UsersGroup Centre (see map page 3). Thesemeetings are a chance for new and ‘older’members (who are always welcome to attend)to meet with representatives of the Committee,to put names to faces, and to ask any questionsthat you may have about the Group and itsactivities. Tea and coffee are available, and theatmosphere is informal and friendly.
Main MeetingsOur main meetings, targeted at our generalmembership, are normally held monthly, on thelast Monday of the month. The date, venueand topic of the meeting always appear on thefront cover of Sixteen Bits which is timed toarrive in your mail-box in the middle of theweek before the next main meeting. Mainmeetings are also advertised in the computingsection of the Canberra Times on the day ofthe meeting. Anyone is welcome to attend thesemeetings—you do not need to be a member.For main meetings, we arrange guest speakerson a variety of topics throughout the year. Asan added incentive, there are usually a coupleof door prizes to be won. You’ve got to be init to win it. There is no main meeting inDecember.
Special EventsWe also have some special events such as the‘Bring and Buy Night’ at the Albert Hall inNovember, and an annual Quiz Night in April.You should read Sixteen Bits thoroughly asspecial events are publicised mainly throughthe magazine.
Annual General MeetingThe Annual General Meeting is held inSeptember each year. Even if you are unable
8 SIXTEEN BITS April 1999
…by
And
rew
Ger
aght
y
StyleWriter for Windows Version 3 is aplain English editor, and is reviewed herefor Sixteen Bits.
Samuel Johnson wrote “was there ever yetanything written my mere man that was wishedlonger by its readers, excepting Don Quixote,Robinson Crusoe and the Pilgrim’s Progress?”he had already noted one of the chief evils ofthe late 20th century.
The English poet, who lived from 1709 to1784, lived in an era that used a quill to writeand literacy an uncommon skill. Societycouldn’t imagine pairing the words “publiceducation”, let alone adding the words “free”and “universal”. Yet the centuries that followedhave created millions of citizens who write,often badly.
Governments, private companies, interestgroup and individuals can (and do) harness thetorrential capacities of the computer to unleashavalanches of words. Much of it so badlywritten that who, indeed, would wish thosedocuments any longer?
Enter an English couple, Nick Wright andRosemary Tilley, editing consultants both. Adda former mechanical engineer and teacherturned programmer, Aussie Peter Stanton, fromMoss Vale. Their mission, should they decideto accept it, was to design a computer programthat would help turn torrents of bad Englishinto something simpler and more readable.
The result is a program called StyleWriter,which comes on disk with a comprehensivemanual and retails for $150 (inc postage andpackaging). And if you recall that famouslament from My Fair Lady, where the Higginsis decrying literacy standards (“Why can’t theEnglish teach their children how to speak?”),there’s good news. Nick and Rosemary havemade huge sales of early versions to Englishaudiences and are also making inroads in thatgreat spaghetti-factory of “English”, America.But rest assured the program is very well suitedto Australia, as both Nick and Rosemaryserved 10 years in the Australian Public Service( so they know their advice is right.
StyleWriter analyses a document, pickingup faults from spelling errors and commonlyconfused words to long sentences, jargon andsexist writing. There is a long list of errors for
which it searches and each prompts asuggestion as you go through step by step. Theaccent is on being concise, simple and straight-forward ( a “Plain English” approach to writing.It is like having an editing consultant residentin your computer to tut-tut about your writingstyle as you improve your document.
And, yes, American clients can get theirversion in American. I wonder will there be aBubba-version specifically for those south ofthe Mason-Dixon Line, y’all? There’s a UKversion as well as the Australian one.
It’s possible to tailor it to suit you. If you’rewriting succinctly, reset the sentence lengthfrom the default of 40 words down to 20. Ifyou’re writing exercises for young writers inprimary school, set it to 5 or 10 words.
Isn’t a spell checker just as good? No way!Especially as, despite whatever it said it wasset to (eg “Australian English”) it still spells inAmerican. Try spellchecking traveller and seeif it suggests a single L.
Why is StyleWriter a bonus? Consider: youcan assess how “Plain” your Plain English is,check spelling and grammar (includingcommonly confused words), alter theparameter checks when changing style andprogram it to look for common errors you oftenrepeat. Above all, StyleWriter isn’t just foreditors, copywriters and other professionalwriters ( it is for everyone. And those who useit should find it improves their writing, makingdocuments simpler, more direct and easier toread. It should be mandatory for all computertechs given the job of writing computermanuals!
Speaking of which, I had the devil’s owntrouble finding Word’s location within thecomputer, as asked in the tearsheet. Especiallytough for novice computer users. What file doyou search for? Try winword.exe. For truenovices, the setup instructions have also missedmentioning selecting “Run” and “Browse” tofind the right setup command to installStyleWriter. Stanton has already updated thisinstruction and is finishing the InstallShieldSetup which will fix all of this.
HINT: First-time users will find it best toopen the User Manual to pages 14 and 15.
Yes, I know Manuals are for losers, but almostall you need to know initially is on these pages.
The program has three key indeces, thePoor Style Index, the Passive Index andAverage sentence length. The Poor Style Indexis roughly the number of Plain English stylefaults to every thousand words. The PassiveIndex is the number of passive verbs to everyhundred sentences. Average Sentence lengthis just that ( the makers like to see then allbelow 20. The program has 25,000 patternsof words and phrases it uses to check yourwriting
Some plus and minus factors withStyleWriter.
PLUS: the analysis is surprisingly fast(depending on the size of the document,obviously). It launches, analyses and reportsbefore you can think of boiling water for thatcuppa. You can vary the ‘long sentence’parameters (eg from 40 to 30, or up to 50,etc). Also, the categories of ‘error’ checkedfor (for example, any use of the word ‘he’ is‘sexist’ regardless of whether it is correct,appropriate and necessary. So, you can optnot to use this check in a piece of writing whichwill use that term frequently). StyleWriter is veryeasy to run, just click on the new toolbar icon.
MINUS: Just like a spell checker, it won’tpick up correctly spelled incorrect usage. Forexample, my scanned document included theacronym ATO (Australian Taxation Office),which the scanner rendered as A TO.StyleWriter did not detect this as an error.However, StyleWriter does check for muchincorrect usage. StyleWriter doesn’t have awritten position prompt (eg in Word, you havea reference at bottom left of which page you’reon). The vertical scrollbar on the StyleWriterwindow shows roughly where you are in adocument.
StyleWriter doesn’t appear to highlightdeliberate errors, eg XXXX as a substitute fora figure or term still to come. Summariesdetailing document analysis, including graphs,won’t print (how handy this might be whileexplaining the document’s original faults to a
SIXTEEN BITS April 1999 9
client!). It will be possible with the next version.StyleWriter treats all text the same, so itapparently can’t distinguish between stylechanges, e.g. where a document jumps fromstraight text to a list of recommendationheadings (in one style) and the detail of thoserecommendations opposite.
I have a few problems with some of thealternatives offered. I don’t think “considering”will always be a guaranteed substitute for“taking into account”. I think there’s asignificant difference in emphasis (or ‘weight’,if you like) between my boss “considering” myreasons for asking for a raise, as against havingthose reasons “taken into account”. Users canadd to or alter the dictionary, customising it totheir needs. Most don’t. When it comes tochoices, a good grasp of English helps. Onceyou’ve chosen, clicking on a replacement wordmakes the required text change.
TREBLE PLUS: I snuck up on it and fedit one of my pet hate words: ‘decimate’.StyleWriter correctly points out that this wordmeans “reduce by a tenth” and is not a synonymfor annihilate, as commonly used. More powerto the programmer who got that right!
I used “File, Exit” to quit the program, as Ihad some difficulty after clicking on the top-right X-quit. It put my version into a couple of
tailspin loops and I avoided doing it after that.I understand that’s rare and both methods ofquitting the program are fine.
There’s a lot more. It has built-in Help, andnot just on using the program. It has help onstyle, usage, punctuation, grammar definitionsand also some tips on writing. The manualdevotes a chapter to good writing principles.
Requirements: 386 chip or better, harddrive and floppy drive (that sounds basic, butremember that many second-world countrieswhich can use it have limited computer means).The program needs 2MB of RAM (moremeans faster), EGA or VGA monitor,Windows 3.1 or later, 1 MB of free hard diskspace for files. The program uses DynamicData Exchange (DDE) to interact between thedocument, its application and the environmentin which it operates. Some word processorsdo not support DDE, as the manualacknowledges.
COMMENT: It’s hard to imagine anythingas modest as this being so damn handy. It is asubstantial and reliable document checkcompared with a spell check. It has an infinitelysuperior grasp of grammar compared withMicrosoft. It’s quick, useful and simple. Itprovides not just targets for improving yourdocuments and style, it provides help. Some
quirks in my version, but it’s too early to tell ifthey are “process or operator” related.
I’d recommend this program to everyone.If you’re a bad writer, it will help you improve.If you’re a conceited writer, it will rock yourcomplacency with hard facts. If you’re a goodwriter, it will provide tangible targets forimprovement and visible statistics to helpexplain the need for change to others, such asclients.
Overall: 8 out of 10. (Those who havetrouble writing will rate it even higher.)
Post Scriptum: I checked this review usingStyleWriter. At first, it had 1546 words in 94sentences with 6 passive verbs. Its Poor StyleIndex was 33 (Good), its Average SentenceLength was 16 (Excellent) and its Passive Index6 (Excellent). It now has (before this PS) 1521words in 95 sentences and 1 passive verb, aPSI of 21 (still only Good), an ASL of 16 anda PI of 1. The manual rates a Passive Index of25 or less as a score of “best-selling authorsand well-trained writers” and I don’t need toworry about making my passive verbs activebecause I know my stuff. How kind.Particularly as the one remaining passive verbisn’t mine, it’s in the quote from SamuelJohnson. Who also gets the last word:
“What is easy is seldom excellent.”
10 SIXTEEN BITS April 1999
Previously (1996) I gave a talk about theInternet and published a paper on thetopic. I have been asked to update it
and republish it.Disclaimer: Products are listed here onlybecause I know about them, I am notrecommending any product discussed.These notes are to the best of my knowledgecorrect, however, the Internet is a mutantblob so any information on it’s size is purelyguestimates and most likely out of date bythe time I type it up. I have only given acursory coverage of this topic due to it’ssize. If there is a requirement I can expandon specific topics if people wish it.
What is the Internet ?The Internet is already the largest computernetwork in the world and, in terms of
connected networks, people, and resources,it is getting larger and therefore more valuableas an information source, literally by the minute.The Internet is a loose amalgam of thousandsof computer networks reaching millions ofpeople all over the world. Although the original
purpose was to provide researchers withaccess to expensive hardware resources, theInternet has demonstrated such speed andeffectiveness as a communications medium thatit has transcended the original mission. It has,in recent years, grown so large and powerfulthat it is now an information and communicationtool that can not be ignored.
The size of the Internet is hard to measure.While it stretches around the world, thestatistics on the number of computer networksinvolved, the number of computers connectedor the amounts of communications equipmentbeing used are hard to establish. One fact isclear; the numbers increase rapidly every day.The best source of information for statistics isthe Internet Society (info.isoc.org), aprofessional, non-governmental, internationalorganisation based in Virginia, USA for global
cooperation and coordination for the Internetand its internetworking technologies andapplications.
Estimates in July 1998 were that there aremore than 40 million connection points to theInternet.
When was it created and why?The story varies depending upon who you
talk to. This is the version I like best. Duringthe second World War computers in oneincarnation or another showed to be invaluabletools. In the sixties (Ban the bomb) era thedefence department became worried about anatomic bomb being able to bring down theirentire computer network. The defencedepartment set about building a computernetwork capable of surviving “the BIG one”.To be able to afford such a network requiredthe inclusion of other government departments.The Internet had an unassuming start in 1969with an experimental project conducted by theAdvanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA)of the United States Department of Defence.
The ARPANET project, as it becameknown, started small, creating a network thatconnected three computers in California to onein Utah. Before long, the initial success ofARPANET allowed the network to expandacross the United States to include militarycontractors and a large number of universitiesdoing military-funded research. Now everyuniversity in the US wanted to be included butsuccess had its cost; ARPANET wasbecoming difficult to manage. Eventually thenetwork was broken into two parts; MILNETfor the military sites and ARPANET for thenon-military sites.
Fortunately, the packet switching approachnot only allowed different computers tocommunicate on the same line but it alsointroduced the concept of routing. If acomputer in Los Angeles needed to talk to acomputer in Utah and both computers werelinked to a computer in San Fransisco, packetssent from Los Angeles could be switched, orrouted, to Utah by the computer in SanFransisco using the address informationincluded in the packet. Three computers butonly two lines! Packet switching allowedMILNET and ARPANET to remainconnected, traffic being routed from one toanother as necessary. An additional feature ofthe routing concept proved to be even moreimportant; given the right information, a
…by Wayne Corbin
SIXTEEN BITS April 1999 11
computer routing packets could decide whichof several lines to send the information on. If acommunications failure rendered one lineunusable an alternative route, or path, to thedestination could be chosenwithout impacting theoriginating computer.
The growth ofARPANET required certainprotocols, or rules, forcommunicating betweencomputers. The AdvancedResearch Projects Agencywas instrumental indeveloping the protocols tothe point where it waspossible to connect manynetworks together. In the late 1970s, linksbetween ARPANET and similar networks inother countries were established. At the sametime, university computing was moving from asmall number of centralised computers to alarge number of smaller desktop workstations.Most of the new workstations ran a variety ofthe popular operating system, UNIX, whichincluded all of the software, required to connectto a network. Soon, a site that once had oneor two computers connected to ARPANETfound the need to have many of the new, fastworkstations attached. These workstationssoon created enough traffic to swampARPANET.
Outside of the United States, networksusing the protocols developed by the
Advanced Research Projects Agency haveappeared in many countries. These networkshave either been sponsored by the localTelephone Company or run by independent
national or regional providers. The firstinternational connections were made in 1973with England and Norway while today, nearlyall countries are connected directly or indirectlywith one of the commercial networks in theUnited States.
The term Internet first appeared in 1982with the launch by the Defence AdvancedResearch Projects Agency, formerly (ARPA),of the Internet Protocol (IP). It has come tobe the name applied to an interconnected,unknown number of computers on networks
in all parts of the world. In general, the wordInternet tends to apply to the network and thetools, or software, associated with it. For themost part, though, the software in common usetoday was developed for other applicationsand has migrated to become a tool of theInternet.
The operating system UNIX included allof the software required to connect to anetwork but it also included a number ofsoftware utilities that have formed a base fortools developed specifically for users of theInternet. However, a very important advancein the use of the Internet came from theEuropean Laboratory for Particle Physics(CERN) in Geneva. It was here that theconcept of the World Wide Web originated in1989; a universe of network-accessibleinformation, a group of software specifications,a set of protocols and conventions which usehypertext and multimedia techniques to makethe Web easy for anyone to roam. It isprobably this advance more than any that has
helped cultivate numerous other networkinginitiatives, which grew up intertwined; 25 yearslater, these have evolved into an everexpanding, complex organism comprising tensof millions of people and tens of thousands ofnetworks.
Internet Hosts
0.005.00
10.0015.0020.0025.0030.0035.0040.00
Jan-
93
Jan-
94
Jan-
95
Jan-
96
Jan-
97
Jan-
98
Hosts (Million)
12 SIXTEEN BITS April 1999
The Internet didn’t take off until the mid80’s. Prior to this the Internet was a text basedUnix environment. Mid 80’s they developed awindows front end which opened it up to theaverage user’s comprehension.
Who owns it/Runs it?There is no group who owns the net. There isa number of bodies setup to try to bring somestandards to the net as well as guidelines.Basically there isn’t anyone to enforce any ofthese guidelines or standards. As long as yourservice provider (and his service provider,...)is prepared to put up with what you do theonly other recourse is legal action if you havebroken a law or flaming. Flaming is wherepeople all over the world send you complaintmail. If only 1% of the world sends you mailthat is a huge amount of data for you and yourservice provider to process.
The Internet Engineering Task Force(IETF) is the protocol engineering,development, and standardisation arm of theInternet Architecture Board (IAB). The IETFis a large open international community ofnetwork designers, operators, vendors, andresearchers concerned with the evolution ofthe Internet protocol architecture and thesmooth operation of the Internet. The maincoordination appears to occur between theAmerican National Science Foundation
(NNSF) and the Internet Society (INSO).InterNIC a subsidiary of AT&T US wasresponsible for management of domain names.
What Applications/Environments runon the Internet?
FTP: File Transfer Protocol: This is away of connecting to a site on any of the manycomputers on the internet and accessing thefiles from their Hard disks (assuming that youhave security access). Most sites allow you tologin with the anonymous user-id.
Gopher: A Text based menu system whichallows you to wander through the internet. Thiswas the predecessor to the world wide web.There are still historical pockets howeverpeople now use the WWW instead.
WWW: World Wide Web: This is themost common way to access the Internet. Thesystem is a hypertext system which allows youto follow links between pages, whether thepages are on the same computers or even inthe same country. WWW is evolving and canallow inbedding of text, images, sound, video,forms, ...
Mail: The Internet has a point to point mailsystem. Where it takes a week for an airmailletter to get to the US an electronic mailmessage will be delivered in a matter ofseconds. Given the time difference (12pm
Canberra = 8am Texas USA) in most caseswhen sending Overseas you will be deliveringa message when people are sleeping in theirbeds.
Automatic Mail: This isn’t really anotherapplication rather another use of mail. You cansubscribe to magazines across the Internet. Ireceive a weekly newsletters from Microsoftas well as other magazines which tell mewhat’s new and interesting on the net. Tosubscribe I sent a email to a specific addresswith the text “Subscribe <My email address>”.There is an automated process which adds meto a list then posts me a newsletter weekly.The cost of receiving the letter is the time ittakes me to download it.
NewsGroups: Bulletin boards havemessage areas - the Internet has Newsgroups.A Newsgroup is an area where you can sendand read messages on a specific topic. Thereare thousands of different groups to choosefrom ranging from uk.Genealogy through toalt.bonk.bonk.fluffy.rabbits. to make life a littleeasier the first extension identifies a categoryeg
* Offer does not apply where commercially inappropriate
SIXTEEN BITS April 1999 13
If you don’t find a group you like you canalways create your own. Back in 1979 whenit started it was 1 computer, today there areover 100,000 messages in over 30,000newsgroups being sent around the world eachday.
IRC: Internet Relay Chat. IRC are areasset aside for real time discussion groups.
Chats can be either text based, voice, andor video based. To have voice and videobased chats you will require hardware andsoftware and due to the speed of transmissionsound and video can be of poor quality. Chatsallow you to talk to anybody in the world andsome chats groups arrange for you to be ableto talk to special people. PLEASE NOTE -on a chat I can try to pass myself off as a 17year old blonde girl with lots of money wholives in the US. Under most conditions youcannot tell anything about the person you aretalking to except for what they tell you,whether it is true or not. At any time there arehundreds of thousands of discussions occuringworld Wide.
MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) andMUSEs (Multi-User SimulationEnvironments): These are virtual worlds inwhich people can interact with other people.The environments can vary wildly - Ancienttimes - Futuristic, ...
ICQ: Monitoring who’s online. ICQ(Iseek you) and similar packages are anextension of email and IRC. These productsallow you to let friends know if you are on-line. When you logon a window will appearlisting the status of your friends (on or offline)you can then contact them and start a one toone chat or alternatively send them a message.Before you can monitor a friend they must beregistered to ICQ and they must give approvalfor you to add them to your list.
What do you need to get on to theInternet?
Hardware Requirements??At least a 486 PC which runs windows.(You can use Unix, OS/2, Win3.1, Win95,Win98, Win NT or a Mac). As the Internetevolves you need new software which mostof it now only runs on the latest platformswhich may force you into the faster pentiumrange.??At least 28.8K speed modem. ( I wouldpersonally recommend nothing less than a33.6K modem however I know a number ofpeople happy with 28.8K.) Since you canbuy a 56K modem at the markets for $90 itis best to go for a good 56K if you can.Software Requirements
You should be able to get software from yourservice provider to connect to the Internet.Once connected there is a reasonable selectionof software available on the net to upgrade to ifyou wish to.Required Software??Network Software these days built into Win95/98/NT??Web Browser to View web pages (eg.Netscape, MS Internet Explorer)
??Mail reader to Read Mail (e.g. Outlook,Netscape, Eudora)Optional Software??News Reader to read Newsgroups (e.g.Netscape, outlook, Agent, Trumpet News)??Telnet to access remote Computers directly(eg QTV)??FTP to transfer files between machines (egFTP, FTP32, Internet Explorer, Netscape)??IRC/ICQ to take part in internet chat groups??Voicephone to talk to people over the netusing sound not text.Warning: When setting up a tcp/ip stack youare connecting to the network. If you specifydevice sharing it is possible for people to accessyour hardware & software via the internet whenyou are connected. I have seen an examplewhere people are deliberately accessing harddisks and printing locally on their personalmachines via the internet.
Service ProvidersPlease consider the following points whenchoosing a provider.
• Are you going to be spending a lot oftime online. (I know people who literally spendhours in the chat lines.)
• Are you going to download a lot forimages, files. (some provides charge by themegabyte or have a megabyte limit.) Note somepeople include or exclude mail in that limit.
• What times of the day will you be online.This can affect your ability to get online oralternatively may be charged at a higher rate.
Look for:• Support if you have problems.• Ability to connect (modem to clientratio). There is no point having unlimited accessif the lines are always busy.• Performance of their link• Cost based on projected usage
• Ability to host a home page (ifrequired)• What limits apply (total storage(homepage/mail) limited to 10 meg), no mailmessage > 1/2 meg, ...
It can be an issue to move your home pageor change you email address when you move,so try to pick a provider you think you will becomfortable with.
How do I find something/Somebodyon the Internet ?
Now I have access the internet, how do I findwhat is out there ?
There are 2 main ways to look forWebpages
1) Look for specific text strings2) Burrow down by categoryLooking for a person requires using one
of the address book sites.Before going too far it is important to
remind you that the net is anarchy and as suchthere is no site which can supply you everythingand if it did it would probably supply you1000’s of sites to review.
Other ways of finding sites are??Subscribing to some of the internet
magazinesNetsurfer, and Tourbus are 2 of the Free
Internet magazines sent to me across the net.??There is a number of commercial
magazines & books which publish sites -Yellow/White pages, ...
??Ask your friends/ Users Groups
Searching for Web SitesRemember when searching it is a good ideato check more than 1 search site because theyall contain different information.
Sites like Alta Vista have huge computers(Multiprocessor, Mutli-gig of Memory, ...)which spend all their time following links onweb pages from site to site indexing all thewords on the pages. Altavista has at least 2computers dedicated full time for just searching.If the Web page you are looking for doesn’thang off the web tree that Alta vista is followingor is buried too many levels down then it willnot be listed in the search. Alternately if thesite has died or moved you may be pointed atnothing. At May 1998 Alta Vista estimateshaving over 140 million pages indexed. Theyscan more than 10 million pages a day andhandle about 36 million searches a day. Basedon the above figures some page informationmust be atleast 14 days old.
Systems like Altavista, Lycos, infoseekallow for different type of searches:
• Internet, Windows The wordsInternet or Windows must appear on the page
14 SIXTEEN BITS April 1999
• “IBM Computer” The wordsIBM Computer must appear next to eachother on the page
• personal-computer The wordsshould appear CLOSE to each other
• [Windows programs] The wordsshould appear CLOSE to each other in anyorder
• +Internet Windows dos T h epage must contain the words Windows or dosand MUST contain Internet
• Windows -dos The page mustcontains the word Windows but not the worddosAt the moment you can’t context search. Ifyou search on window you can find computers,glaziers, and people talking about the windowof opportunity. XML is an emerging standardwhich may help address this (see futuredirections). Most government departmentshave started using metadata to improve theirpages searchability. If your interested checkout “the Australian Government locator Service(AGLS)” available through the OGIT web site.
Searching for somebodyAgain there is no complete list of contactnumbers that you can search. There are somesites which monitor all newsgroups and extractpeoples names for those groups. i.e. if you have
enter or responded to a newsgroup messagein a group that the search engine monitors youwill be listed. Again these sites allow wildcardsearching. ( Four11 White Pages Directory :http:\\www.four11.com\ )
Searching for a fileThere are 2 main ways to find files.
• Keyword/Supplier searching using asearch engineIf you know the name of the file search using atool like alta vistaIf your looking for a driver or patch then startat the company home page
• Using one of the major FTP indexsites. Below are just 2 of the manyTucows - index to most Internet related files,games, PDA’s (http://tucows.interact.net.au/)Happy Puppy - Games (http://www.happypuppy.com/)
What are the standard formats forInternet Addresses?
Your Internet address is just like your postaladdress. it ensures that others can find you onthe Internet. .Just as “Wayne Corbin, Australia”is insufficient for Australia Post, it is not enoughfor the Internet either. A correct and preciseInternet address ensures that you will receiveyour E-Mail or that you can access sites
worldwide. There are two main types of ’address:your e-mail address, and a URL (UniformResource Locater or Unique Record Locater)E-Mail An example:[email protected] (Case Sensitive)wcorbin user’s name@ separates the user’s name from hisaddress(pcug.org.au) (Domain name)pcug the organisation’s name.org the nature of the organisation.au a country indicatorURL example:http://www.pcug.org.au/~wcorbin/ftp://ftp.pcug.org.au/user/~fred/fred.zipnote: most web browsers will allow you to dropthe First HTTP or FTP and will add itthemselves egwww.pcug.org.au/~wcorbin/welcome.htmhttp The tool required to get the itempcug the organisation’s name.org the nature of the organisation.au a country indicator/~wcorbin/welcome.htm The folderstructure and the name of the required itemOrganisation Types Some commonly usedorganization types:.com commercial .mil military.edu educational .net networking
We want to give you the best ser vice.
—————————————————————————————————-——————— We custom build your computer to your requirements.
CAL L FOR GREAT PRICES ON
SYSTEM S, UPGRADES, SOFTWARE, COM PONENTS , M ONITORS, PRINTERS _____________________________________________________________________
ALWAYS FOR QUALI TY SERVICE & PRODUCT
PH: 2577555 L & S ASSOCIATES FX: 2472880
69 PATERSON STREET, AI NSLIE A.C.T. 2602
SALES - SUPPORT - SERVICE - NETWORKS - COM PONENTS - SOFTWARE - REPAIRS ____________________________________________________________________
.gov government .org non-profitTool Requirement Types Some of thecommon applicationshttp Hypertext Transfer protocolftp File transfer protocolnews Newsgroupsgopher Gophermailto Mail MessagesWAIS Wide area Info ServerCountry Indicators Some of the countryabbreviations you may use frequently:au Australia jp Japanaq Antarctica my Malaysiabr Brazil nz New Zealandca Canada pg Papua New Guineaen China sa Saudi Arabiafr France sg Singaporehk Hong Kongza South Africaid Indonesia gb United Kingdomin India us United States(For a full list of the country codes see ISO3166)
Note: Because the web first started in theUS most US addresses won’t contain acountryindicator. Also because the stand is not enforceyou can find URL’s like Bambi, or sitespretending to be in different countries.(www.bridgeclimb.com is an Australian site)
To make life slightly more complicated theURL is converted to a numeric string (IP)203.10.76.34 for internal use. If you are giventhe numeric string it will work the same waythat a url does. The advantage of using the URLis that a URL can be moved between serviceproviders while the numeric string can’t.
What are Domain Names ?In the above case the pcug.org.au is referredto as the domain name. This is the name bywhich the company/site is known.For most people they simply use the domainof their service supplier. At the moment youcan register any name you like, however if youregister somebody else’s trademark/name theycan take you to court and probably win backthe right to that address.
However Trademarks are allotted toclassifications so the same trademark can beowned by different people. I think there isabout 22 classes so for instance Applecomputer company owned the Appletrademark for all classes except music. TheBeatles started the apple recording companyand had a trade mark in the music class. Ifboth companies wanted www.apple.com, whoget the rights to the name? Early in the piecepeople were registering companies likewww.coke.com and trying to on sell them tothe proper companies for a lot of money. Ibelieve that there has been legal precedent set
for winning back addresses(not my area of expertise).At one stage companieswere setting up sites undercompetitors names andwould point those sites attheir own addresses oradvertise their ownproducts at thoseaddresses.
Prior to September1995, the National ScienceFoundation funded theadministration of the“COM”, “ORG”, “NET”,“EDU”, and “GOV” androot domains through aCooperative Agreementwith Network Solutions,the InterNIC Registrar.Since September 1995fees have been charged. Apart of the funds receivedfrom those fees replace thefunding provided by theNational ScienceFoundation, and provides“program income” whichoffsets costs related to theintellectual infrastructure ofthe Internet. Theregistration has sincefurther devolved to profit based companies.
Two types of charges exist with respect todomain names. The first is a “Registration Fee”(or initial fee) for new domain names; the otheris a “Maintenance Fee” (or recurring fee) forexisting domain names that are alreadyregistered.
What is an Intranet ?/ What is aExtranet
All an intranet is is a network internal to anorganisational site which uses the Internettechnology (Software/Protocol). An Extranetis intranet which is spread over multiple sitebut is still restricted to private use. Companieslike Borland have found that the Extranet is veryuseful network technology. They investigatedLotus notes amongst other technologies fordisseminating information around all it’s staffworldwide. They found using a Extranet mosteffective. At the moment Intranets are whereinternet technology is growing the fastest. Thedown side for us is that this is also where themoney is to be made. A lot of the internet toolsare being designed to run across a 4 or 16megabit internal networks not a 0.05Megmodem. In the long run though we hopefullycan only benefit. :
BETTOWYNDmonitor repair specialists
No Fix ---No Fee
Prompt, guaranteed repairs to ALLtypes of monitors and terminals
(including Apple and NEC)
Fixed price, with discount toMembers
Quality second handmonitors are also available
for purchase
Unit 5 Centrecourt, 1 Pirie st,FYSHWICK
Telephone 6239 1043
NETWORK ADMINWANTED
There is currently a position vacant asthe PC training room admin.
The PC Users group requires the skillsof a volunteer who has had some trainingwith Windows NT4.0 and wintendo 95operating systems. This position will be asan assistant to the current PC administratorin maintaining the training room and maincenter computers.
No hardware experience is neccessaryand training will be provided on the setupand maintainence of the computers. Therequired maintainence is usually performedoutside of “Office Hours” so it would bepreferable to have the position filled bysomeone who lives in the Belconnen area andhas their own transport.
This is an excellent opportunity toadminister and manage a network forsomeone who is currently beginning orthinking about a career in the IT industry.
It’s true. This is what Telstra offer in theireasymail program.
Before I am criticised for openly promotingcommercial interests let me say that I amappraising a software program that I see ofenormous value to the community. This is oneoccasion where I feel that we, the users, getmore out of the service than does the supplier.Communication has made enormous advancessince Cobb and Co started running coaches inVictoria in 1854, and easymail must be seenas a major service to the broad community forthe facility it provides at such little cost.
The program installs from a free CD ontoWindows 95/98 with at least a 9.6kbpsmodem and 30M of free disk space. It can beinstalled on more than one computer and haveten accounts in each installation. I have it onboth my desktop Win98 and my laptop Win95computers. Installation on the desktop waspainless but there were initial, and needless,complications with the laptop. The desktop hasonly one modem installed — a K56flex —which was detected and used by the setupwizard. My laptop had two modems installed,the K56flex not in use and a PC card modemthat was in normal use. It was switched on andconnected to the phone line. But the installationwizard could not find it, locked onto the K56installation, and insisted that I did not have amodem connected. I had to remove the K56installation before I could use easymail. Isuppose I could have gone to my easymail
connection in Dial-Up Networking andmanually selected the PC card modem, but Irather prefer to believe the wizard should havebeen intelligent enough to find it. The highmajority of users probably know little to nothingabout Dial-Up Networking configuration, andshould not have to manually alter it if they justhappen to have installed more than one modemon their computer. This problem may havealready been addressed, because the firstlogon immediately downloads and installs alater version of easymail, and there is no wayof knowing what the improvements are.
Having its own Dial-Up Networkingeasymail does not require connection throughan ISP, and thus is immediately andconveniently available to those unable orunwilling to adopt the Internet technology withthe financial obligations and learning involved.In this International Year of the Older Personit is an appropriate offering, but is certainly notconfined to this group. I will use it extensivelybecause I travel widely and will no longer haveto wait till 7.00 p.m. to logon to TIP duringcheap STD time. Families with dispersedmembers can more easily and cheaply keep intouch. Kids will write email before they willwrite letters, and it gets to its destination a lotfaster. Easymail is not confined to easymailsubscribers; anyone with an email address is aviable correspondent.
You will not need your own computer ifyou have access to one with easymail installedand there is room for another easymail mailbox.
You can create your own temporary accountand remove it when it is no longer needed.Mailboxes are password protected and yourcorrespondence is private until it isdownloaded. Every time you create a newmailbox a new version of the software isdownloaded, customised for the user profilethat is essential to opening the account andcreated through a screen interrogation.
Anyone already familiar with email will haveno difficulty using easymail. For those new tothe subject there is an excellent tutorial and acomprehensive help file. Problems can besolved by email or by phone line, but there is acharge for customer support by phone.
Limitations of the program are threefold.The ten allowable messages per session
cannot exceed 250kBytes, an average of 25kBper message. I received a 24.5kB attachmentto one message with no problem.
While attachments can be received thereis no provision for sending attachments. Theaim is to keep the program simple.
Compulsory advertising accompaniesevery session, with the advertisementsdetermined by the user profile. In terms ofkeeping costs down this must be acceptableand may even be useful to some people.
While the maximum capability of theprogram is stressed — 10 messages sent and10 received for the cost of a local call — thereis a caveat. The program stays on line ONLYwhen sending or receiving mail. So if youreceive mail and decide to prepare a reply youwill be reconnected to send that message. Twophone calls. And when this is sent you aredisconnected again. You cannot stay onlinewhile preparing messages. To get the maximumbenefit it will be necessary to prepare allmessages offline and send them as a batch, atwhich time all your incoming messages will bedownloaded. Easymail makes the preparation,editing and storage of messages and addressbook offline very easy, and this should facilitateand encourage economical use.
I am unabashedly enthusiastic. Enjoy youremailing.
Send 10messages inone session
Receive 10messages in thesame session.
No Internetaccess needed.
Local call costanywhere inAustralia.
F r e einstallation.
No otherrunning costs.
Believe it?
…by
Ter
ry B
ibo
SIXTEEN BITS April 1999 17
Mum, I’d like a modem so I can goon the Internet.” I said, as allchildren in PC-owning households
have said at some stage over the past 2 years.“You want a what so you can do what?”
was the response. It was time to be creative.“Um, a modem. It’s like a telephone for
the computer -”“- But we’ve already got a telephone -”“- a special telephone, that lets our
computer talk to other computers.”“Oh, I see. Why would you want to do
that?”“Um, so I can go on the Internet.”“The Internet? You mean you want to use
our computer to talk with computers overseas,to talk to other people and find outinformation?” I consider myself lucky to havea mother who cares about knowing about thatsort of thing.
“Yes!” I thought I was there, the Internetwould be mine!
“Do you know how much thoseinternational calls cost? Forget about it.”
And so the struggle began. Let’s face it. Inmany households, computers hardly justify theirprice as word processors. For someone likeme, a 16-year-old male with a passion forPCs, I had enough trouble convincing myparents (who have no use for PCs) that simpleword processing features such as Spell-Checking made a brand-new computer worthbuying. It took me five years of begging until Igot my first decent PC, and that was back in1997. I thought that was a major achievement.Now, the Maestro Jeststream 56K modemthat sits on top of my CPU so that I canconnect to the Internet through the PCUGjustifies my belief in God.
Many people can’t simply afford to goonline (connect to the Internet). I have no doubtthat those who can afford it give their childrenan edge over those that don’t. How does akid/teenager convince their parents to get theInternet? That’s what this article is all about.
So you want to go online. I’ll assume thatyour situation was almost as bad as mine: thatyou do own a computer, that your parentsknow enough about the computer not to tearthe plug out instead of shutting down, and thatall they know about the Internet is that there’sfar too much pornography for little eyes to lookat. First: Find out what you need. I’ll be bluntwith you, you’ll need to own a Pentium thatruns Windows 95 reliably well (is that anoxymoron?) and a 33.6K modem (althoughthese days you should buy 56K if you’rebuying brand-new) to make it worth your whileif you want to go on the Internet. If you ONLYwant email and newsgroups (and you knowwhat they are), you may as well buy a second-hand 14.4K or 9600bps modem and use yourfree PCUG account (ask Petra or any memberexperienced with using the system for moreinfo). If you’re running Windows 3.1 and wantto go on the Internet, there is no other way forme to tell you this: Forget about the Internetand get your PC upgraded instead. Windows3.1 just doesn’t have the grunt for you to getthe most from the net: It’s like trying to updatea 7-series with Datsun 180B parts: Not worthit.
I’ll assume you have a Pentium. If you needto buy a modem (and if you own a 14.4K orslower modem, you need to buy a modem),don’t buy it second-hand, get it brand-new,make sure it’s compatible with your computerand that the cables will fit in the back of yourcomputer, and DEFINITELY make sure itcomes with at least a one-year warranty. Ifyou’re on a budget, buy a 33.6K modem (butdon’t spend more than $80 for it), if you canafford it, good-quality 56k modems areavailable for as low as $130. If you have $100-$200, go for a Maesto. Ring them up direct,they have a factory jut outside Canberra, andif you drive out there yourself not only do youget a PCUG and factory-direct discount, butthe support team is excellent.
If you need to extend your phone line, orget a new line put in, it’s going to cost you to
have Telstra put it in. To get a totally new line,so that you can use your normal phone andconnect to the Internet at the same time, it’sgoing to cost you $120 to have it put in and$11 a month rent. Or if you want an extensionto the phone line you’ve got now, it’ll cost youa LOT less, and there’s NO monthly charge,but if you’re using the modem, nobody canring you up.
As you can see, it’s not cheap. And Ihaven’t even started talking about how muchactually getting on the Internet will cost you.You’re going to have to work out a battle plan.Don’t forget, your parents are supposed to benice people. They also work hard. Since yourparents are nice people, but are tired fromworking, volunteer to wash the car, or to mowthe lawn, or to do the dishes. If you get anaward from school, tell them about how hardyou worked for it. Don’t be mean to them,and go to sleep early when they ask you to. Itreally helps if there’s a short time left until yourbirthday or Christmas too. In other words,suck up to them. If you manage to keep thatup for a few days, they’ll know you wantsomething and it won’t take too long beforethey ask you what it is. You know your parentsbetter than I do, so you should know how tobe good and for how long. When you’reconfident enough: Ask. Make sure you’vebeen looking around, and you know all theprices. Have it all written down. And beprepared for them to say no. And for the wholesuck-up process to start all over again...
John Plumidis is a 16 year old who enjoyscomputing and wants to get the most outof the PCUG. He’s also organising (withthe help of Neil Cameron) The GamesSIG, a group that will operate eachFriday of the school holidays at the PCUGcentre to play games for all ages. He’s alsolooking for kids interested in gettingtogether to make a website. Contact:Phone 6281 2350, [email protected], or ICQ# 25886924.
The kid�s roadmap for joining the information superhighway
…by
Joh
n P
lum
idis
N.B. The Games SIG will run Easter school hols April 9, Duke Nukem 3D (with hacks and add-ons); April 16:WarCraft 2 (with expansion pack). Both days the times will be 12:30pm-6pm
18 SIXTEEN BITS April 1999
Robyn Williams: Imagine not being ableto read, or to write. How manyactivities would be affected? Some of
us could hardly get through the day. Yet over10% of Australians are, according to studiesquoted by Don Tinkler, functionally illiterate.Their plight and the cost to the country issomething we should take very seriouslyindeed.
And now, what of the effect of the newtechnology? When I was last at a leadinguniversity this year, I was fascinated to hearstudents facing their finals say that one of theessentials of preparation was to learn to writewith a pen once more. They hadn’t actuallydone so for years.
Don Tinkler is an education consultant wholives and works in Melbourne.
Don Tinkler: For generations, learning toread and write has been basic to education inthe primary school. Teaching has focussed onthe skills of decoding printed and writtensymbols and those required for effective writtencommunication. Without such skills, individualshave been considered disadvantaged, unableto access the store of knowledge of the ages,and capable of only limitedcommunication with others.
In 1975, a Committee of theHouse of Representatives raisedconcerns about literacy levels inAustralia. At that time, thecriticisms of the Committee weregenerally rejected by our senioreducators, most claiming in theirdefence that levels of literacy hadbeen maintained comparable withthe standards of the past.
It seemed not to occur to them thatcircumstances and demand for skills might bechanging; that levels considered acceptable inthe 50s and the 60s might no longer beappropriate for the 70s. But, I digress.
Four years ago, the House ofRepresentatives Standing Committee lookedagain at the subject of literacy, this time focusingupon what they called ‘current methods ofidentifying children at risk’.
The Committee questioned the standardsof teaching, pointing out that ‘it is unacceptable
that 10% to 20% of children finish primaryschool with literacy problems’.
Commenting on teaching approachesgenerally, the report asserted that ‘changes inthe way in which reading and writing are taughthave not achieved the universal literacyoutcome for children which is required if allare to later participate effectively in society asadults’.
Members also expressed concern aboutthe probability that between 10% and 20% ofAustralian adults were functionally illiterate.
As a consequence of that report, schoolauthorities across Australia have embarkedupon an intensive program in the early yearsof primary school to emphasise literacydevelopment.
Children needing special attention are beingsingled out, and ‘catch-up’ or reading recoveryprograms, have been introduced to ensure thatno student will leave primary school with afuture handicapped by illiteracy.
Once again, most of the energy appearsto be directed towards traditional practices inhandling the printed word, practices as mighthave been called for a decade or so ago.
Little consideration seems to have beengiven to advancing beyond the basic readingand writing skills to enable learners to copewith being literate in a world of increasingcomplexity, a complexity in large part broughtabout by the revolution in communication andinformation technologies.
Nobody should think that books will beabandoned overnight as a source ofinformation and enjoyment; printed material willlong remain significant, but electronicinformation technologies will permeate thewhole of our society.
In any future, while the ability to read wellwill be of increasing importance, the challengewill be how to cope with the mass of data andinformation being made available through thevarious new forms of convergent technologies.
We face a serious danger that technologywill leave people behind. David Suzuki, afrequent visitor to these parts, first suggestedalmost a decade ago that ‘human beings havebecome the most reliable failure component inour technology today’. If that were so in 1987,how much more is it the case today, and whatof the future?
It’s a matter of history that early in the1980s computers crossed over the divideseparating school from the world of commerceand science. Computer Studies became aschool subject in its own right. At the time itwas believed that all users would need the skillsof computer programming. The term ‘computerliteracy’ crept into everyday language, and evenemerged as one of the accepted goals ofeducation.
But how relevant is that term today? Withthe passage of time and advances in computerhardware and software, what does it mean to
say a person is computerliterate? What is it thatdistinguishes persons with skillsin word processing from thosewith skills in preparingspreadsheets, or persons withskill in computer-aided design,from those creating animationon a computer screen?
As the information andcommunication technologies
further converge, where the telephone is likelyto fill the functions of computer, facsimilemachine, video receiver and conduit to theInternet, the term ‘computer literacy’ will haveeven less relevance.
The computer is only a tool, although asophisticated tool with multiple uses. Aubiquitous instrument in today’s world, thecomputer has largely superseded a lesssophisticated tool - the typewriter.
While accepting that one can becomecompetent, it does seem to stretch the metaphor
Nobody should think that books will be abandonedovernight as a source of information and enjoyment;
printed material will long remain significant, butelectronic information technologies will permeate the
whole of our society.
SIXTEEN BITS April 1999 19
Information Literacy - the effect of newtechnology on literacy
a bit far to say that one can become ‘literate’in the use of a tool.
In a recent survey for the FederalGovernment’s Employment and Skills Council,looking at how in the longer term theconvergence of information and communicationtechnologies is likely to affect education andthe work of educators and trainers, mycolleagues and I concluded that the term‘computer literacy’ tends to get in the way ofeffective communication.
We recommended that the term ‘literacy’should be replaced by ‘competence’. So, weshould refer to an ability in handling computersnot as ‘computer literacy’ but as ‘computercompetence’. This is not just a matter ofsemantics. To talk of ‘computer competence’would allow for distinctions to be drawnbetween the various competencies required fordifferent platforms, different softwarepackages, and different ways of accessing andprocessing data, whether from hard disk, theInternet or from a CD-ROM.
Were he alive today, I’m sure William ofOckham would agree.
It would have meaning to say, ‘She hascompetence in word processing’ or ‘She iscompetent with computer-aided design’ or‘She has competence in computer animation’.
While it’s true that we need some studentswith advanced understandings of electronicsand others who specialise in computerprogramming, it is no longer true that everybodyneeds to be a programmer. It must now beaccepted that everyone will need a sufficientlevel of competence to feel at ease in usingcomputers and interacting with othercommunication tools likely to appear on thescene.
Knowledge has been equated by somecommentators with power. However,knowledge about knowledge is even moreimportant, and carries an even higher status.
In the Information Age, a new economyhas emerged in which knowledge is traded asa marketable commodity. In this globalknowledge economy, teachers and trainers area part of the knowledge workforce trading inthe new currency.
Our report also suggests the acceptanceof a knowledge hierarchy, starting at the basewith data and rising at the apex to wisdom.
Data is considered as the raw materialfrom which, with value adding, an individual
generates meaningful information. By makingconnections with existing understandings, thatis, with more value adding, the information isconverted into knowledge. Further valueadding, we suggest, can result in the conversionof that knowledge into insight and foresight andultimately wisdom.
Rather than suffering from an overload ofinformation, the problem for this age is anoversupply of data, something becoming moreapparent every day as the Internet expandsand the World Wide Web, a phenomenon ofrecent times, continues to grow exponentially.
No doubt the impact of the informationrevolution on the way we learn, work and live,will demand much more of learners than theminimal competencies in reading andhandwriting that might have been acceptedeven a decade ago. There is an urgent needfor more highly developed literacy skills to allowindividuals to discern where value lies in themass of data becoming available - to separate‘signal’ from background ‘noise’.
In an earlier report to the Government onlifelong learning, Professor Phillip Candyintroduced a term ‘information literacy’ asadopted by the American Library Associationin referring to skills of library management.
Candy linked information literacy withlearning to learn, which he claimed involvedthe higher order skills of analysis, synthesis andevaluation, the ability to think critically, toconstruct meaning and reconstructunderstanding in light of new experiences.
We suggest that Phillip Candy’s informationliteracy be further expanded. Once a soundfoundation of traditional literacy skills - readingand writing - has been established, an individualcould build the higher-order systems thinking,or inferential skills needed to mentally processinformation, whether that information comesby way of a conventional print source, or viaelectronic technology.
Information literacy could be seen as anatural and important extension of reading andwriting, so enabling individuals to participateeffectively in the new global economy.
In developing information literacy, studentswould gain the ability effectively to select anduse data and information to create knowledgethrough such activities as:
• decoding data and informationwhatever form;
• retrieving information using a varietyof media;
• critically evaluation information,exploring the interconnectedness of variousfields of knowledge;
• using computer-based services tosearch for information in a range of contexts;
• using computer-based technologies toanalyse, write, present and communicateinformation.
To nurture the various information literacyskills in their students, teachers as facilitatorsof learning will need to acquire high levels ofinformation literacy themselves. As much astheir students, teachers will have to becomelifelong learners.
And yet our findings confirmed that schoolsgenerally lacked the technical and humansupport needed if they were to cope withconverging technologies.
In our survey, professional developmentwas of concern second only to that of funding.As a society, we need to accept the need forappropriate programs of professionaldevelopment at various points throughout ateaching career.
Skill building for this new approach toliteracy can begin long before a child reachesschool age.
Information literacy as an adequatefoundation for lifelong learning, will dependupon understanding how data and information- in whatever form - is gathered, analysed andsynthesised to become meaningful knowledge,together with an ability to apply higher-orderthinking in dealing with that knowledge - aprocess which may simply begin with activitiesthat heighten the sensory perceptions of thevery young.
Robyn Williams: Don Tinkler. He’s aneducational consultant based in Melbourne.
Ockham’s Razor is broadcast at8.45am every Sunday and repeated at2am every Thursday on Radio National,the Australian BroadcastingCorporation’s national radio network ofideas.
The transcripts are reprinted herewith the kind permission of the AustralianBroadcasting Corporation.
20 SIXTEEN BITS April 1999
We are now in the run-up to the end of anotherfinancial year. I am often asked how home-based computer equipment may be successfullyclaimed as a tax deduction.
As the tax laws are in a constant state offlux, it is a confusing area. This article is notdesigned as legal advice, but will show yousome examples of valid deductions. If youwant to claim a deduction, talk to youraccountant or tax adviser who will advise youon your particular situation.
The basic rule for obtaining a tax benefit isthat only purchases or expenses incurred in thegeneration of taxable income can be claimed.
For example, professionals who relyheavily on their diaries are able to claim thecost of an electronic organiser as a deduction.This means that the cost of the diary (say $150)can be deducted from the income earned duringthat financial year. This is not the same assaving $150 off your tax bill. You merelyreduce your income by $150.
On the other hand, if you buy a diary tohelp you organise your social life, or use it in ahobby business which does not declare incomefor tax purposes, you cannot claim thededuction.
Once you can establish that the expense isincurred in generating income, a straightdeduction is generally available for any productwhich costs less than $300 (such as paper andink cartridges) or has an effective life of lessthan 3 years.
What will be the “effective life” dependson the product. Software and consumableswill generally have an effective life of less than3 years and can therefore be deducted 100%in the first year.
If the effective life is greater than 3 yearsand the cost is greater than $300, then the itemwill have to be depreciated. Roughly speaking,this means that a percentage depreciation willbe applied to the item, and the dollar value ofthat depreciation can be claimed as adeduction. Once the item has beendepreciated fully, you cannot claim any moredeductions. Many people decide to depreciate
an item over several years instead of claimingthe full cost in the first year. This can have theeffect of spreading the benefit over these taxyears.
It should be noted that the TaxCommissioner has stated that computersystems have an effective life of 5 years, andtherefore need to be depreciated over thatperiod.
You should always keep receipts with yourtax returns. You should never throw out your
tax returns - you never know when they’ll berequired.
If the item is used for private andprofessional purposes, then a pro rataapportionment will be applied to the deductionor depreciation.
And no, computer games are notdeductible as “executive stress relief”. In fact,I am aware of one story about a fellow whoboasted to a Tax Department Officer abouthis computer games, only to find that he lost aportion of his computer’s “work related” statusas a result.
Apart from deductions, there a many othermeans of reducing your tax liability.
Students often claim their self educationexpenses for text books and the like.Computers and software fall into the samecategory and can be claimed, so long as theyare used for study. To be on the safe side, anapportionment should be made between privateand study related use. Also, you cannot claimthe first $250 of self education expenses.
The home office is also one of the mostuseful deductions available. However, theguidelines are fairly strict. If you use a room inyour house to generate income for yourbusiness (as opposed to merely using it as analternative to your regular workplace), you maybe entitled to claim deductions for the following:
interest on your home loan;rent;house insurance;rates;heating and lighting;depreciation (on desks, chairs, carpets,curtains etc)cleaning costs and pest control;maintenance and decorating; andtelephone (including modem, ISP andfax charges).
The first 3 items, above, are claimable on apercentage-of-floorspace basis.
As I have mentioned, this is a tricky areaof the law. Never buy an item hoping for a taxdeduction. Look into alternatives to buying -the rental or lease payments may provide atax benefit where a purchase does not.
Most people happily survive by simplyclaiming home office expenses and the cost ofconsumables such as paper and ink cartridges.
You should remember that the tax systemis one of self appraisal. You should always beable to verify your claims or the Tax Officemay decide to dig deeper.
The Tax ManCometh... …
by G
eoff
Pur
vis-
Sm
ith
:
Geoff Purvis-Smith is a Canberra-based litigation and dispute resolutionlawyer who provides advice on IT issues.He can be contacted on (02) 62740803.
SIXTEEN BITS April 1999 21
:
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
I want a cheap computer that will enableme to complete my university thesis on themotions of the moon!”. So said Harry
when giving his specifications to FredCounterhand at EZR Computing.
“I know just what you need.” Said Fredas he triumphantly displayed the latest bauble.
Six months later and, nearing the deadlinefor the submission of his thesis Harry foundthat the computer did not perform toexpectations.
“This has never happened before.” SaidFred And, after several attempts to find aremedy, he ended up making a full refund ofthe purchase price. Harry later went to anotherstore and received immediate satisfaction. Histhesis was submitted on time but only just and,happy with his latest (more expensive)computer, he has tried to forget the incident.
What went wrong?I’m not sure, but this is my guess.....Harry
probably got a machine with a CPU that doesnot handle floating-point arithmetic. If so, theproblem was in the use of language.
Fred probably imagined that the fresh-faced youth standing in front of him wanted amachine that could be used to predict the besttime to go surfing (or some such thing). Acalculator and a good tide chart would do thatjob.
For his part Harry had been studyingastronomy for years. He had a pretty intimateknowledge of the work done by the earlyastronomers in their search for an accuratetimepiece and Harry wanted to do acomprehensive comparison of the tablesprepared by each of them. “Everybody knowsthat the moon takes 18 years to get back to itsoriginal place in the heavens.....” Harry wouldhave said. “And everybody ought to knowthat the job of comparison of the moon’smotions would require some sophisticatedmathematical techniques”
Fred and Harry apparently were both guiltyof presumption as to the nature of the subject-matter in the mind of the person across thecounter. Every counter-jumper who has everplayed ‘QUAKE’ would have given him the
correct machine if only Harry had uttered themagic word “floating-point”. Also, most Fredswould have known the need for floating pointprocessing if Harry had only mentioned thewords “number crunching”, or even if he hadsaid something like “I want to compare some80,000 three-dimensional calculations asrecorded by 6 different people”. (Of course,the words “university thesis” should havesuggested something more complex than asimple tide-chart.)
[Incidentally, if you would like to read astory that is at least as fascinating as the fablestold by Scheherazade (Aladdin et al) then youmight read the tale of the search for accuracyin time as told by Dava Sobel in “Longitude”as published by Fourth Estate Ltd 1996/8]
I’m not too sure how it came about butmost pharmaceuticals now-a-days come inboxes which contain a very detailed descriptionof the properties of the enclosed medication(this is a big advance on the situation of myyouth when we expected our doctor to explainall of the side-effects of the preparation that hewas prescribing).
A modification of this practice has alsobeen adopted by the manufacturers of boxedfoodstuffs who, perhaps being conscious of theharm that certain fats; colours; flavours; andpreservatives have on some people, give a listingof the contents of their products.
If these practices are self-imposed it’s apity that the computer manufacturing industrydoes not copy their example. Makers ofelectronic components usually issue detaileddescriptions of the properties of eachcomponent. These include charts of operatingperformances under the effects of heat;humidity; dust; voltage fluctuations; and (yes,even) the existence of floating-point capability.Some of these data could be made known (inplain English) to prospective purchasers ofassembled equipments, not as a brochure tobe kept under the table until requested (or,heaven forbid, sold as an optional extra), butas an essential element of communicationbetween buyer and seller.
I have no doubt that Fred would like tohave Harry continue to do business with EZR.
The return of the full original purchase price iscertainly one way to keep faith with thecustomer but, unless Harry has somecompelling reason so to do, it is unlikely thathe will return (it is a moot point but I suspectthat EZR is legally bound to refund the full priceunder the circumstances described [mootbecause Harry would consider the valueinvolved not to be worth the costs of litigation,and because of the difficulty of “proving” thathe had, indeed, given the specification cited]).Every shop-owner ought to know that the bestway to keep a customer is to supply his needsin the first place and, if Fred had taken thetrouble to find out exactly what was required,this may have been achieved. The primaryonus for this is on Fred because it is Fred whowill benefit by Harry’s return to EZR and it isFred who should be the more practiced in thesolving of problems of communication.
As consumer, you can have a significantinput into the rectification of user manuals whichare inadequate or unclear. All you have to dois to say “No!” and say why. If you speak toa conscientious employee or to the shop ownerthen the message is bound to get back to themanufacturer.
I have some other specific examples(which I plan to discuss in coming articles) ofwhat I consider to be a break in the chain ofcommunication between the manufacturers ofcomputer components and the ultimate user.If any reader has any examples of the sorts ofexperiences to which I refer I would be pleasedto hear about them (contact me [email protected]).
Names used above are fictitious. Thename EZR is entirely my own invention and Ihave not discovered its use anywhere else inAustralia.
…by
Don
Nic
ol
22 SIXTEEN BITS April 1999
Welcome to the March 1999edition of this column—thismonth I have included reviews of
4 of the 20 products that I have reviewed forInfoRom during the last month - to see the otherreviews check www.inforom.com.au. Itfeatures reviews of educational, homereference and entertainment CD-ROMs.
The reviews are of Pinball Science,Endeavour: Captain Cook’s Journal 1768-71, Rogue Squadron and EncyclopediaReference Library 1999. Copyright for thereviews rests with InfoRom.
PINBALL SCIENCE
Pinball Science is an entertaining andcleverly conceived introduction to a numberof scientific principles from David Macaulay,the author of The Way Things Work. Essentiallythe idea is to build three great pinball games,and in so doing learn a great deal about scientificprinciples in areas such as energy, sound, lightand electricity. It is suitable for upper primaryand lower secondary students, and it wouldbe a very useful classroom resource for unitsin basic physics.
Once you have built the pinball game youcan play it, and the games feature an unusualassembly of components such as springs, waterwheels, gears, catapults, levers, etc. In all, theprogram features 300 graded sciencequestions and covers 24 topics. Essentiallythere are three steps to the process:
• Earn the various components of thegame by answering a series of sciencequizzes;
• Assemble the components you haveearned by following a blueprint;
• Play the game.When you start you can choose from one
of three levels of difficulty, and then you pullout the first blueprint for a wondrous work
(pinball game) in a village (the other two areon the moon and on an island). You are givena list of components that you need for the game,and to earn each one you have to answer aseries of science questions. For example:
• A lever turns about a fixed point orline. What is this called? (Fulcrum)
• What is the rubber stopper inside a tapcalled? (Washer)
If you don’t know the answer you can clickon the Research button to be taken to theappropriate page in the ‘textbook’, where youwill find the other. The textbook is wellillustrated and easy to read, and even if studentshit the Research button for every question theywill still learn quite a lot of science.
Once you have earned a component youplace it in the right place on the map byfollowing the blueprint. In the case of somecomponents e.g. springs you have several toplace and some choices about where to putthem.
Finally, you play the game. It is much like anormal game of pinball, and you use thekeyboard to operate the levers (flippers) andtilt the game in various directions. However,as mentioned above, it includes all sorts ofunusual components and features and, with thegood graphics and sound effects, the game isvery entertaining—especially since you havejust built it.
The aim of course is to try to set a newhigh score. If you answer extra questions oneach component (during the construct-ionphase), you earn the Advanced feature for thatcomponent, which means more points andmore powerful possibilities.
Once you have successfully com-pleted theVillage pinball machine, you can move on tothe other two. There is a detailed index oftopics, as well as an interesting (but slightlywacky) Inventor’s Journal that describes howthe great inventor arrived at his various com-
ponentsand assembledeach work (with a bit of scientific explanationthrown in).
It is possible to jump from within theprogram to mammoth.net—David Macaulay’sInternet site for young inventors. There is nouser guide, but there is online help that providesa good explanation of all program features.Australian Distributor: Roadshow NewMedia (Tel: 61 2 9552 8700)(Fax: 61 2 9660 8436) (http://www.village.com.au)Format: One CD for Windows 95/98Publisher: Dorling Kindersley(http://www.dk.com)
ENDEAVOUR: CAPTAIN COOK�S
JOURNAL 1768-71
Endeavour: Captain Cook’s Journal1768-71 is a detailed multimedia present-ationof the epic voyage of discovery undertakenby Lieutenant James Cook in 1768-71. Itincludes a full digital facsimile of the originalmanuscript of his journal, as well assupplementary features that cover all aspectsof the voyage. These are richly illustrated withmaps, diagrams and colour illustrations.
It is a ‘must buy’ for anyone with an interestin the exploration of Australasia and the Pacificor the life and times of James Cook, one ofthe world’s great explorers. The visual qualityof the many illustrations and maps is good, andthe program is user friendly and easy to movearound. It is suitable for all ages from upperprimary school to adult.
• The People.The Journal can be viewed in its original
manuscript form, or as a typed transcript. Theformer is interesting to look at, but is practicallyillegible. However, the transcript provides afascinating day-by-day account of the trials,tribulations and achievements of this amazingvoyage, and it is a testimony to CaptainCook’s ability to record in meticulous detailall of the events of the trip. It is especiallyinterest-ing if you search for particular entriesvia the date or term indexes provided.
The Voyage provides a useful and veryreadable account of the main events of thevoyage. By reading through this from start tofinish you can obtain a good overview of whatis in the Journal. There are also colour mapsavailable—these provide month-by-monthdiagrams of where the Endeavour actuallywent.
The Ship contains a virtual 3D walk-through of the Endeavour, as well asbackground information on various aspects oflife on board, eg nutrition, health and ‘A typicalday’. The latter gives you a good feel for whatthe daily routine was like on board one of thesesailing vessels. The 3D walk-through gives youpanoramic sweeps of virtually every part of afull replica of the vessel, and you can zoom inon any part of the screen. An explanation ofwhat is visible is provided below the viewingwindow. The only disappointment is therelatively small size of the viewing window.
The Discoveries provides detailedinformation on the many discoveries madeunder the headings of Astronomy, Botany,
Cartography and Zoology. It is atestimony to the extraordinary
scientific achievements of thevoyage, and the text is wellillustrated with diagrams,drawings and maps. There isalso a useful section on ‘The
Scientific Process of theTime’.The Mission provides
background information on otherearly voyages of discovery; scientific,
strategic and commercial motives (eg controlof the lucrative trade routes); someperspectives on the kind of person Cook was;and a summary of the main achievements ofthe mission.
The People provides a useful overview ofland, food and culture of the peoples of virtuallyevery place visited, from Madeira to Australia,again with a good variety of drawings andcolour illus-trations. It also providesbackground information about the life and rolesof the various people on board the Endeavour,including detailed biographies of Sir JosephBanks and James Cook. Interest-ingly, ‘littleis known of James Cook’s personal life. Hispersonal papers and letters were burnt by hiswife shortly before her death.’
It is possible to place bookmarks at variouspoints, as well as print select documents fromeach module. There is no user guide, but thereis detailed online help, as well as an Explorefeature that provides an interactive introductionto each of the main features.Australian Distributor: National Library ofAustralia (Tel: 61 2 6262 1646)(Fax: 61 2 6273 1084)(Email: [email protected])Format: One CD-ROM for Windows 95 orlater and MacintoshPublisher: National Library of Australia(www.nla.gov.au) and National MaritimeMuseum
ROGUE SQUADRON
Rogue Squadron is a 3D Star Wars fightercombat game, featuring excellent 3D graphicsand five rebel fighters. It is in the same genreas X-wing vs Tie Fighter, but features bettergraphics (a 3D-accel-erator card is essential),and more realistically rendered spacecraft.
The game is set in the time period betweenStar Wars: a New Hope and The EmpireStrikes Back. The Rogue Squadron is a
specially assembled collection of 12 of the bestrebel pilots available, with you taking on therole of Luke Skywalker, the leader.
Essentially you are called upon toundertake a series of successively more difficultmissions that involve air-air and air-groundcombat with Imperial forces. You cannotattempt the later missions until you havecompleted earlier missions. Of course, it won’tbe too long until the various passwords thatyou need (as well as cheats) are available onthe Internet.
In the first mission you have no choiceabout which spacecraft to fly but, as you moveup through the various missions (16 in all), youcan choose from any one of the following fiverebel craft:• X-wing—the venerable craft flown by
Luke when he destroyed the firstDeath Star;
• A-wing—faster fighter in the RebelAlliance;
• Y-wing—cross between a fighter anda bomber;
• Airspeeder—fast and small, lowaltitude fighter;
• V-wing airspeeder—lighter and fasterthan the airspeeder.
Each of the above spacecraft is repro-duced in realistic detail, and each one has itsown particular weapons and controls. Alongthe way you will encounter a wide variety ofImperial craft and defences, each one wellpresented and ‘intelligently controlled’.
The visual realism and sense of 3D combatis excellent—the best yet in the Star Warsseries. Fighters, ground objects and terrain areall reproduced in excellent detail. You cancontrol via joystick, mouse and/or keyboard,and you have a wide range of features andoptions available at any time.
There are thrust and brake featuresavailable so that you have better control of yourairspeed and location than in some earliergames. While you have a range of viewsavailable at any time, at the top right of thescreen there is a radar that gives you a ‘map’of friendly, enemy and/or neutral forces around
you at any time. The sound effects andbackground Star Wars music are also great.At the end of the mission you get a tally screento show you how well you scored—a goodscore means a medal and (possibly) apromotion.
The mission objectives and locations areinteresting, with a wide variety of enemy craft/buildings; environments that include desert,thick volcanic clouds and a marine planet thatis almost entirely covered with water; and allsorts of alien races. All in all, it is a game thatshould keep most space fighter combat enth-usiasts going for quite a while.
There is no online help, but there is abeautifully illustrated 40-page user guide thatprovides a detailed introduction to gamecontrols, the craft and the missions, as well assome flying tips.Australian Distributor: MetroGames(Tel: 61 3 9329 2999)(Fax: 61 3 9329 2995 )(www.metrogames.com.au)Format: One CD-ROM for Windows 95/98Publisher: Lucas Arts(http://www.lucasarts.com)
ENCYCLOPEDIA REFERENCE
LIBRARY 1999
Encyclopedia Reference Library 1999 isa 3 CD-ROM set from Webster Publish-ingthat includes two separate products: WorldEncyclopedia 1999 and Encyclo-pedia ofAustralia 1999. It is excellent value as an overallmultimedia reference package for upperprimary or lower secondary Australianstudents.
Webster ’s World Encyclopedia 99 is anupdate to the multimedia encyclopedia on twoCD-ROMs that features the CambridgeEncyclopedia as well as a number of otherreference sources such as The CambridgeBiographical Encyclo-pedia and TheCambridge Dictionary of Scientists. Contentis presented in the following main sections:
• Encyclopedia A-Z;
• Our World and Beyond;
• Exploring the Past;
• Dictionaries;
• Multimedia Interactivities;
• Science Review;
• Online Extras.The Encyclopedia is the main com-ponent
of the program. The depth of coverage of mosttopics is introductory, and they are presentedin alphabetical order, with a good mix ofphotographs and other media elements. To
access articles on particular topics you needto use the search facility, although most articlesare fairly well cross referenced and there is aRelated Topics button.
Our World and Beyond covers current andtopical issues, and the chapters include UnitedNations, Launch Into Space, World Atlas andDay-by-Day Stories. The World Atlasprovides an A-Z of every country in the world,with statistics and a few summary paragraphsfor each one, plus world map location and afairly basic regional map. Day-by-Day Storiesprovides the top news events for every dayfrom Jan 96 to Sept 98 (updates can bedownloaded from the Internet). One interestinginclusion in this section is The Millennium Bookof Prophecy—a compil-ation of over 700predictions and proph-ecies that include Oldand New Testament prophets, Nostradamusand Dixon.
Exploring the Past has 10 chapters ofworld history organised into categories suchas Dr. Brasch’s Book of Origin, HistoricalAnecdotes, History of Australia and ModernWorld History. To illustrate by example,History of Australia provides 25 pages ofinformation (an illustration plus a fewparagraphs of text) on Australian history fromprehistory to present day.
Dictionaries has two components—themain dictionary that provides definit-ions ofwords and terms, and the natural historydictionary that provides definit-ions ofbiological terms and concepts as well asscientific names and brief descript-ions foranimal species.
• Foreign Phrase Guide—12 words/phrases plus some numbers iin 41languages;
• Lunar Lander—game that simulates amoon landing;
• Time After Time—provides currenttime in different parts of the world;
• StarGazer—a view of the night sky atany time and location around the world;
• Timelines—collection of 12 diff-erenttimelines, eg World History, Great
Explorers, Tech Inventions that containthumbnail pictures as well as labels ofkey events;
• Moongazer—current informationabout location, view, etc of moon;
• On This Day—summary of news forcurrent day in 1996, 1997 or 1998;
multimedia encyclopedia to focus specific-allyon Australia. It includes 9,000 ‘pages’ of text;over 3,500 pictures, maps and tables; about75 video clips; and the Heinemann AustralianDictionary. The content has been updated andis now current to1998. The information isorgan-ised in the following main subject areas:
• States, Towns, Parks and Maps;
• Flora & Fauna;
• Climate & Geography;
• Facts & Figures;
• Inventions and Discoveries;
• Performing Arts and Awards;
• Politics and Political History;
• Sports and Sportspeople;
• Famous Australians;
• General History;
• History Themes;
• Graphical Timelines;
• Year Book and Online Updates.Most of these are further subdivided (26
categories in the case of Sport). Once a topichas been selected, the screen will generallyconsist of a picture or video window and asmaller text window. The information is quitewell presented, and it is generally at a suitablelevel for upper primary or secondary schoolchildren. The cross referencing is quiteextensive, but the articles do not includebibliographies or ‘recommended reading’.
States, Towns, Parks and Maps pro-vides fact files (in the case of states), briefhistories and general descriptions of the variouslocalities within Australia. The articles are wellillustrated with a variety of good quality, colourphotos and maps.
Similarly, Flora and Fauna provides aninteresting summary of some of Australia’sunique wildlife (including Australian dinosaurs)and about 500 species of flora. As well asphotos there are some video clips.
Climate and Geography includesinformation about a range of environ-mentalissues such as kangaroo manage-ment, thegreenhouse effect, and energy saving.
Facts and Figures provides a wide rangeof statistics in 21 categories such as health and
• Tours/Projects—provides tours (slideshows of topics such as Birds) as wellas allowing you to create your own.
• Science Review is a collection of brief‘science in review’ articles from theyear 1997.
Encyclopedia of Australia 1999 is thelatest version of the only general reference
Well last month, we had a Formwhich accepted two inputs, onegiven the name “firstname”, and
the other named “lastname”. For this article, Iam going to send “Owen” as the First Name,and “Cook” as the Last Name.
When you clicked on the “Send It Now”button, it collected the inputs that you made,and sent off a message to TIP saying..”Hey,here is a variable called ‘firstname’, and it hasa value of ‘Owen’ (or whatever you enteredin the box) and another one called ‘lastname’and it has the value ‘Cook’”.
The message is all jumbled up and it is upto your CGI script and TIP to decipher it all.So how do you do that?
OK, here is the CGI script. If you do notcare to type it, you can download it as http://www.pcug.org.au/~rcook/cgi-bin/test1.txtand then RENAME it to test1.cgi. If you dotype it up, copy it exactly, make sure all thesemicolons are there.
Pretty simple, so let’s explain what it does.Line 1. This says to TIP, “Hey, I want to
use a computer language called Perl which islocated on this path in TIP “/opt/contrib/bin/”.
Line 2. Not only do I want your Perl, butalso your library of programs located on thispath “/opt/contrib/etc/www/cgi-bin/”. Thissaves a lot of programming.
Line 3. Now get out of the library, theprogram called ReadParse, and read thatmumbo jumbo sent down from the form. Placethe information in a small database. (In this
case because we only sent two variables, thedatabase will have two entries,
..A variable called ‘firstname’, with a value‘Owen’
..A variable called ‘lastname’, with a value‘Cook’
Line 4. OK, as we are going to send a pageback to the browser that just sent theinformation, we need the program calledPrintHeader.
Line 5. Print the start of a HTML page, theTitle being ‘Test’ in this case.
Line 6. Now print out what you sent me,just add ‘Hi’ to the start.
Line 7. That’s it, now send the bottom ofthe HTML page.
The execution of this script will produce inyour browser, “Hi Owen Cook”.
Well that’s how it works, but now you haveto get it up on your web area. To do this, youneed to use WS_FTP. Log in to your ownWWW area and create, if you haven’t alreadydone so a directory called “cgi-bin” but withoutthe inverted commas. Change to this directory.Then up load, using WSFTP, the file “test1.cgi”,using ASCII transfer. Make sure the ASCIItransfer button is activated. If you do not do anascii transfer, you will get a server error.
Now you have to change the permission ofyour file so that other users can execute it. Todo this, use your mouse and;
Right click in any part of the grey area ofthe WS_FTP dialogue box. You will get a FTPMenu, one of which is “FTP Commands”.
Go to this, and you will get yet anothermenu, one of which is “SITE”.
Go to this sub menu, and you will get adialogue box which asks you to ‘Enter SITEstring’. This is what you enter;
chmod 755 test1.cgiPress enter and you should see at the bottom
of WS_FTP, 200 chmod 755 successful, if youdon’t, you haven’t done it right. If you do notdo this step, TIP will come back at you with amessage telling you to do so.
Trivia: If you use WSFTP and click on thefar right hand button which is named ‘DirectoryInfo’, you will get, for test1.cgi, this entry;
rwxr-x r-x which means;you, as owner of this bit of TIP, can read,
write and execute the file, but anyone else fromTIP, or from the rest of the world for that mattercan only read or execute the script, theycertainly cannot write to your file (and changeit).
When you get it working, try adding a fewlines, for example, add this line before the lastline, type it exactly to avoid the dreaded“Server Error”;
print “<HR> \n”;and see what happens. Don’t forget to
upload it in ASCII.The “dreaded Server Error message” is
something like , “You have committed aheinous crime against TIP, report to theWebmaster and confess as to what you didand when you did it.”
Well Allan Mikkelsen is our Webmasterand he does not want you to report your scriptfailings to him. In fact, when and if he finds thesource of this message, it will be changed tosomething like “Gottcha..Your script doesn’twork Ha Ha, try again”.
This is just a gentle reminder that CGIscripts are your problem. The facility is thereto use, but there is no official TIP help forthem, just like your own web page.
Now having said that, I am more thanwilling, having written this article, to help youget going, but please do have a try yourselffirst. Also, if there is any interest, I will arrangea training course for those that feel morecomfortable by doing a course.
Next month, I will tell you all the things Ididn’t tell you in these last two articles. I willalso give you a few lines of code to add to thescript, perhaps how to log the time as well aslog accesses to the script, so till then, happyCGIing or perling or whatever. :
OK, so Christmas is well and truly overfor another year... but who went outand bought themselves a present
anyway? I have to admit that I did, and gotsome nice surprises about my purchase.
I’d been thinking about a couple of thingsfor my computer for a long time. Part of thiswas driven by a big worry - I didn’t have adecent means of backing up my system athome. But I sure know how important it is.About six or seven years ago, my hard discdied and I lost everything. I have had a half-baked backup process in place since.However, relying on floppies is very slow,cumbersome and frustrating (this is code for ‘Ididn’t do it very often because it was all toohard’).
Tape drives have been the staple means ofbackup for a long time. Another more recentarrival has been Zip drives, high capacityfloppies or similar. However, every time Ilooked at this type of solution, I got put off.Either the drives are expensive, the media areexpensive or both. There had to be a betterway, I thought, so I went shopping to test someideas.
I headed off to the Lyneham computermarket a month or so before Christmas withthe intent of buying a new hard disc and aremovable drawer for the old 1.2G drive. Thatwas my backup plan.
After queuing and paying my $2, I wasamazed at what I found inside (my first visit tothe market)! Hard discs were amazingly cheap.A 3.2G Quantum (same brand as my old drive)could be had for not much more than $200.But the biggest surprise was the price of CDwriters. I made a decision then and there thatmy primary purchase would be a CD writerand I would also get a larger hard disc so Icould have a spare CD worth of space (650M)to be able to create CD images and write newones.
Aside from using the CD-R for backups, Ihad other plans. My brother spent a couple ofyears writing and recording music some years
ago. I had the only remaining copy on cassetteand I didn’t trust it to survive on this medium.So my first big project would be to transferthis to CD...
Being short of cash on the day of my visitto the markets, I waited another couple ofweeks for the next market (at Exhibition Park)and duly bought my new 3.2G hard disc andKodak 2801 IDE CD writer, plus a box ofblank CDs. I still had change from $600. TheCD writer went in that weekend and workedperfectly from day one. The hard discreplacement had to wait a month or so, until I
wasn’t so busy, had done the necessaryresearch and had plucked up the courage toactually tackle the job. For those contemplatingputting in a new disc, I can recommend therecipe forwarded to me by Graeme Challinor,which he had, in turn, obtained from ‘Errol’whoever that may be. Thank you both. Itworked like a charm (see box).
So what were the pleasant surprises withthe CD writer? Aside from the easy installationand the low price, it came with a surprisingpiece of software called ‘PacketCD’. This isvery nifty. It enables a writable CD to be
…by
Gle
nn P
ure
SIXTEEN BITS April 1999 27
treated almost like a normal hard disc. InWindows Explorer, files or folders can simplybe picked up in the normal way and droppedonto the CD drive where they will be faithfullywritten. Similarly, files can be ‘deleted’ fromthe CD - but because the Kodak 2801 drive(actually a re-badged Mitsumi drive) is only asingle write drive, the file isn’t actually deleted,it’s just hidden. It is still on the disc and can beaccessed at anytime by right clicking on theCD drive and going to the ‘Packet CD’ pageunder ‘Properties’. Every write session isrecorded and can be reselected from thisscreen. Any disc writes from ‘the future’ willnot be visible when an earlier point in the historyis selected (see screen shot).
The PacketCD disc still must be ‘finalised’before it can be read on a normal CD drive,but can be read unfinalised at any time on theCD writer.
I use PacketCD as a standard tool for mybackups now. I use the backup software thatcame with Windows 95. It is adequate, butnot brilliant. For one, it won’t backup directlyto the CD writer. That’s easy to fix though. AllI do is write the backup file to the hard discfirst, then go to Explorer and dump the backupfile onto the CD. This obviously requiressufficient free space on the hard disc, but thatis not a problem for me (at least not at present)with my new bigger drive.
The CD writer also comes withCeQuadrat’s ToGo! software (also known asWinOnCD) which is a CD writing package. Itenables CDs to be copied, audio and dataCDs to be created and most other thingspeople would want to do with their writer(screen shot of startup window shown) -although I haven’t tried out most of the optionsyet (maybe never will?).
My first big project, as flagged above, wasto create an audio CD from the tape made bymy brother. This turned out to be a morechallenging task than anticipated. The firstproblem I found was that my old sound cardwasn’t up to the job. It was an old ISA bustype. The main problem was that whenrecording CD quality audio, I found it wouldoccasionally skip small sections of the music(a bit like a vinyl record with a scratch thatcauses the stylus to jump tracks). I neverconfirmed the cause of the problem but suspect(based on advice from others) that the ISAbus wasn’t fast enough to handle the datastream in competition with Windows 95 andall the background chattering that occurs overthe bus due to the operating system and systemfunctions.
Another trip to the markets was needed tosolve my problem, this time to buy a new soundcard (the old one was maybe 3 years old ormore so it had paid its way). I bought a PCIbus card this time - a Sound Blaster/EnsoniqPCI64. The PCI bus is quite a lot faster thanthe old ISA bus so the theory was that thismight solve my problem. Luckily it did, at leastmost of the time (but surprisingly, I still noticethe same fault on rare occasions making itnecessary to check every file before I write toCD).
The PCI64 is also a card with excellentsound quality and specifications, includingwavetable MIDI. However, it has its ownunique problems. I have been getting occasionalWindows boot failures (can’t load device‘IOS’) since I installed the card. After a fairbit of hunting around, I eventually establishedthat this was a Windows 95 fault that arises iftoo many drivers are loaded at boot time. Igot hold of a Microsoft patch from the Ensoniqweb site.
The PCI64 had another quirk. I found therewas no volume control on the line input (in fact,the control software is pretty weak comparedwith the generally high standard of this card).Since I was recording from a cassette deck, Ineeded to run my cassette line out into mysound card line in. This would be fine if the
input level was at an appropriate level. It turnedout to be a touch higher than allowable.Fortunately, I dabble in a little electronics andso was able to make up a simple attenuatorbetween the cassette and the sound card.
Having spent several weeks solvingproblems and getting ready, I could now createthe wave files needed to write the audio CD.But just when I thought the end was in sight,more problems arose. At this point I wasbeginning to wonder how much more wouldhave to be endured to get the project finished.My first CD was a flop. The first write sessionbombed out when my system crashed. The nextone worked perfectly. I then ran intointermittent problems. I could create a CDproject in ToGo (the CD authoring package)and write it without any failures, but when Iplayed it back, the end of some tracks wasmissing. I ended up spending a lot of time tryingthings to solve this without much success andended up with a bin half full of stuffed CDs inthe process. Maybe this is just the necessaryinitiation ritual for owners of CD writers?
In the end, I never did convince myself ofthe cause of this problem but did do two thingsand all appears to be well now:
* the firmware for my CD writer was flashupgraded to the latest version.
continued on page 28…
…
28 SIXTEEN BITS April 1999
* I switched off all background tasksin Windows (except for core tasks that cannot be closed such as Explorer) beforerecording.
In spite of all the problems I ran into, noneproved insurmountable in the end, nor do Iregret my purchase. I hope to get many CDsworth of fun out of this ‘toy’ - as well as finallysolving my backup problems!
Hard disc replacement recipe (forWindows 95)
1 Read all of these instructions first, makesure you understand them and get everythingready you need to before starting this process.
2 Go through your old hard disc and deleteall that garbage you had been meaning to getrid of for years (not mandatory, though). Makea backup of your system, or at least all yourdata files.
3 Create a Windows emergency boot discby going to Control Panel | Add/RemovePrograms | Startup disc. Follow the instructions.When you are done, make sure you copy yourCD device drivers and create a workingautoexec.bat and config.sys that will startthese. Copy these to your startup disc also.Windows 95 DOES NOT do this for you(surprisingly). You will be thankful for this incase you need to do a clean install of Windowsfrom your CD drive.
4 Install the new hard disc as a slave(using the jumpers on the disc; you will
have to consult the data that came withthe drive to know what to do here) and setit up to be recognised by your system (bycreating entries for the drive in the CMOSsetup which can be accessed each timeyou boot your computer). Prior to doingthis, make a note of all your old CMOSsettings in case you need to back out ofthe process.
5 Shut the system down, then bootfrom the Windows startup disc (make sureyour CMOS is set up to seek the A: drivefirst during bootup, if you have such anoption).
6 Start FDISK at the DOS prompt. Ifyou get a message asking if you want tocreate a FAT32 file system (Windows 95bor later), chose this option. Next, select‘Change current fixed disk drive’, thenselect the number of your new disc drive(usually ‘2’). DON’T FORGET TO DOTHIS OR THE NEXT STEPS WILL
DESTROY THE CONTENT OF YOUROLD DISC.
7 When you are back at the main menu inFDISK, select ‘Create DOS Partition orLogical DOS Drive’, then select ‘Create aPrimary DOS Partition’. If you have Windows95b or later, one large drive can be createdwith FAT32. If you are creating FAT16partitions, you will use your new discspace more efficiently if you create anumber of smaller partitions at this point(assuming you are installing a new disclarger than 500M).
8 When done, exit FDISK and restartthe computer using the Startup disc again.Now at the DOS prompt, type FORMAT /S D: (assuming your new drive is D:). Makesure you don’t reformat your old disc.
9 Reboot again, but first remove the Startupdisc so you boot from your old hard disc toWindows 95. Now, go to Control Panel |System | Performance | Virtual Memory andselect ‘let me specify my own virtual memorysettings’. Change the hard disc settings fromC: to D: (again, presuming D: is your newdrive). Ignore the scary warnings (be brave).Reboot and check with Explorer thatWIN386.SWP is on the new drive.
10 With Explorer still open, go to View| Options and select ‘show all files’ (thiswill enable you to select and copy all thehidden files on your current disc as well
education, and includes summary data fromthe 1996 Census.
Inventions and Discoveries provides asummary of 400 Australian inventions anddiscoveries, while Performing Arts andAwards covers major performing arts awardsplus the artists themselves. The program alsoprovides the words for 13 of Australia’s betterknown poems, eg The Man From Snowy Riverand Waltzing Matilda. These are attractivelyillustrated with appropriate colour photos.
Appropriately enough, the next section afterPerforming Arts is Politics and PoliticalHistory. This covers both state and federalgovernments and politicians from 1788 topresent day.
Sports and Sports People providesbackground information on a range of ‘major’sports from Athletics to Yachting, as well assections on the Commonwealth games andOlympic games. There is also biographicalinformation on ‘sporting heroes’ such as CathyFreeman and Don Bradman. For most of them
there is a photo with a few paragraphs ofaccompanying text.
General History contains 14 chapters ontopics such as First Fleet Journals, FirstSettlement Journals, Aboriginal Arrivals andPost 1945.
History Themes is a collection of essayson topics such as Bushrangers, AboriginalAustralia and Advertising.
Graphical Timelines provides time-linesfor Australian and world history.
Year Book and Online Updates prov-idesday-by-day summaries of important events for1996-1998, and it is possible to obtain onlineupdates to the 1999 Year book (on aprogressive basis) from the Webster site onthe Internet (see below).
Common FeaturesOnline Extras enables you to jump from
within the program to the Websterworld site(see below) where you can obtain updates,access links to other relevant sites anddownload educational inform-ation, video clipsand games.
Tools for students and researchers includea project creation facility, the ability to addnotes and bookmarks and a Search tool thatenables users to search by word, article,picture, video, sound, table or all media. Onecan copy or print pages, sections and/orpictures in large or small size.
There is detailed online help within bothprograms, as well as a 35-page user guide thatprovides a good explanation of all commonprogram features.Australian Distributor: Webster Publishing(Tel: 61 2 9975 1466)(Fax: 61 2 9452 3493)Format: 3 CD-ROMs for Windows 95/98Publisher: Webster Publishing(http://www.websterpublishing.com)
continued on page 29…
…continued from page 24
:
Nick Thomson is the manager ofInfoRom, a service on the Internet thatreviews educational, home reference andedutainment CD-ROM software. It canbe found at www.inforom.com.au.
If you often need to graph data to your ownstyle it is possible in Excel 97 to define yourown chart types. User defined chart types
contain all your own preferred formattingoptions. This has the advantages that you willsave time in the production of graphs and willalways produce output that looks the same.
Saving user defined chart typesTo save a user defined chart type first
create a chart to the style that you want orlocate one from your previous creations.
Select the chart by clicking on it. Then fromthe menu bar select Chart | Chart Type. Thefollowing Chart Type dialogue box will appear.
…by
Gre
g B
aker
Choose the Custom Types tab andselect the User-defined radio button. Nextclick on Add to bring up the Add CustomChart Type dialogue box.
Enter a name for this one of your charttypes into the Name box and optionally adescription into the Description box. Thisuser defined chart is now available for use.
Note that you can define as manydifferent chart types as you want.
Using user defined chart typesTo use a user defined chart type simply
select your data in the usual way then goingthrough the normal Chart Wizard process.Step 1 will give you the following dialogue
box which is practically identical to the ChartType dialogue box shown above.
Select the Custom Types tab and the User-defined radio button. Then select the type ofuser defined chart you want and click on Next> to move to the next charting stage.
This material is copyright. It may not bereproduced in any form without permissionfrom the Department of the ParliamentaryLibrary.
as the ‘normal’ ones). Click on the rootdirectory of your old hard disc in the leftpane of Explorer, select any file or folderin the right pane and press <Control A>.This will select all files and folders on yourcurrent drive. Scroll the left pane until youcan see the root directory of your newdrive. Pick up all the files and folders inthe right pane and drop them on the newdrive (to do this, hold the ‘Control’ keydown while you left-mouse-click on a filein the right pane and, while still holding‘Control’ down, drag the lot and drop itonto the new drive in the left pane). Makesure your overwrite the MSDOS.SYS fileon your new drive with the old one.
11 After the copy, run Scandisk fromthe DOS prompt to thoroughly check out
your new drive for errors. Your new discshould now be a mirror copy of the oldone.
12 Power down the computer and resetthe new drive as the Master using thejumpers on the disc drive. Disconnect theold drive. Boot with the startup floppyand set up the new drive in CMOS as thenew master disc. Delete the CMOSsettings for the second hard disc. StartFDISK and select ‘Set active partition’ tothe new drive (now the C: drive). ExitFDISK. Now the big moment...
13 Remove the startup floppy andrestart your computer. It should bootnormally from the new hard disc (if allwent well). If anything goes wrong, yourold hard disc should be completely intactand just as you left it when you startedthis process. To back out, reinstall this
disc as your master, disconnect the newhard disc, and (booting from the startupfloppy) reset all the CMOS settings to theiroriginal values. Remove the startup discand boot from the old hard disc. Yourcomputer should boot normally (just as itdid before your started).
14 Whether or not you are running fromthe old or the new disc, go to Control Panel| System | Performance | Virtual Memory andreset the disc to C: and reboot. If your newhard disc installed successfully, you maynow re-install the old hard disc as a slave ifdesired (this may need to FDISKed andreformatted as your system may not likehaving two bootable hard discs, even ifone is a slave). :
…continued from page28…
30 SIXTEEN BITS April 1999
…by
And
rew
Cla
yton
J
How Operating Systems are likeKnights:
In the realm of the Mighty King Gateswho has pulled the sword from the stoneand slaughtered everyone with it, comes theknights of the MS Table:
Sir DOS: Plain complexion and no armor.Rides very stablely on his mare. He vary rarelyfalls, but knows only the basic combat tacticsand is very difficult to talk to, since he speaksand understands no more than eight-letterwords. King Gates plots to murder him.
Sir Windows 1.0: Sir DOS’s twin brotherwith a bad toupee. He falls off his horse quitefrequently and knows no more than Sir DOS.Just as difficult to communicate with due to hisobsession with eight-letter words. He waskilled in his first battle. King Gates Pretendsthis one never existed.
Sir Windows 3.x: Sir Windows 1.0’sbest friend. He is a wee bit more stable on hishorse than Sir Windows 1.0, yet not as goodas Sir DOS. He’s got some really neat designson his shield but still does not know muchmore than Sir DOS. Sir Windows 3.x has yetto overcome his devotion to eight-letterwords. King Gates is always asking, ‘Whycan’t you be more like that nice SirWindows95?’
Sir Windows95: Sir Windows 3.x’sBrother. He’s got the same designs on hisshield, but his armor is very shiny. Knowsadvanced combat skills, but never really putsthem to use. Not confined to eight-letterwords anymore, but it depends who he’stalking to. Claims to be able to converse withmany people at once, however if he tries tocoverse with too many, he’ll fall right off hishorse and land on top of somebody. KingGates is proud of this one.
Sir Windows NT: Sir Windows95’stough-guy uncle. He’s got duller designs onhis shield, but the same shiny armor. His armoris virtually impenetrable, but a pain to get intoand impossible to get out of, all he can do isadd more layers. Falls off his horse every oncein a while, and everyone else goes right withhim. Can converse with many people at oncewithout falling off. He knows advancedcombat skills and uses them when necessary.Has the same problems with eight-letter
words as Sir Windows95. This is King Gates’favorite thing to show off.
Now we leave the realm of the MightyKing Gates and find the wandering swordsmanof the land:
Sir UNIX: Does not do battle and wearsonly chain mail. He finds all the information hecan and his only goal is to distribute it to otherswho ask. Knows games and will play them,but likes work better. King Gates has sent SirWindows NT out to kill and mutilate thisknight.
Sir MAC OS: Started the fad of theshiny armor and claims the knights of therealm of King Gates stole his ideas. Latelyhis popularity has declined. And recentlyhe has made an alliance with King Gates.
He does know any useful battle skills andwill tell you only what he thinks youshould know. The good thing about himis that he has no problem with word morethan eight letter words.
Sir OS/2: Spied on Sir Windows 3.x andSir Windows95 and copied off of them. Hewas popular for a time, but now many refuseto acknowledge his exsitstance. There is arumor that he has a son named Warp.
King Gates Reigns high over all that is hisand destroys or consumes all that is not. Andthese are the OS Knights.
(pinched from http://www.jokes.com)
SIXTEEN BITS April 1999 31
…by
Vic
tor B
ushe
ll
Send your replies (or gifts and/orbribes) to Vic at:
Holly was faced with a dilemma. Heneeded to come up with some teststo find who would be more likely to
succeed in steering the Starbug through theapproaching rogue asteroid belt: Lister,Rimmer, Kryten, the Cat, or the Talkie (I toast,therefore I am) Toaster(tm) (Patent AppliedFor). None inspired much confidence. Heknew that, with his IQ of 6000 (equivalent to12000 political spin-doctors), the astro-mechanics would be a doddle, but he wouldstill need help if they were to survive andcontinue their search for Red Dwarf.Rummaging around in his memory databankhe recalled the time and motion studytechniques that were all the rage with certain20th Century managers. He allowed himselfthe luxury of a brief giggle as the movie fromthe same era, I’m All Right Jack, that satirisedthe whole concept, flashed through his cranialcircuits. Come to think of it, he could show itnext recreation night, if there was a nextrecreation night. And that was why the scuttershad to skedadlle to the stores to retrieve anold style toaster, popular around the middle ofthat century, and the distant ancestor of thecurrent, somewhat irritating model, and whythe first two problems he set tested the crew’spractical optimisation skills.
Consider a toaster, like this old model, thattoasts one side of each of two pieces at thesame time. It takes two hands to insert orremove each slice. To turn the slice over it ismerely necessary to push the toaster door allthe way down, and allow the spring to bring itback, flipping the slice as it does so. Thus twoslices can be turned at the same time, but onlyone can be inserted or removed. The time totoast a side is exactly 0.50 minutes. Time toturn over is 0.02 minutes. Time to removetoasted slice and place it on plate is 0.05minutes, and the time to secure a piece of breadand place in the toaster is 0.05 minutes. Theproblem is to list the steps, in order, that willgive the shortest possible time required to toastthree slices on both sides, starting with breadon plate, and returning toast to plate, and togive that time. Assume toaster is warmed andready to go.
Three of the space suits on the Starbughave to be tested, but the ship has only twotest chambers. Each suit must be tested for 1hour at each of two low pressures. It takes 10minutes to load a suit in a chamber, set thepressure, and start the test; 4 minutes to changethe pressure; and 10 minutes to unload a suitfrom the chamber. What is the minimum timeto complete the tests? What are the stepsrequired?
Now Holly had insisted that all the crewsit through the complete collection of 21stCentury Sesame Street videos, and he hadforced them all to attend his weekendelementary maths and computing lectures (tobreak the boredom - well that’s how he put it- on their long voyage). As he said, adoptingwhat passed for an encouraging grin, and totallyignoring their groans “With the following hint,if you really understand what you know youshould spot the solution without too muchtrouble - trust me!”
On Earth, the Hindu-Arabic numbersystem, based on 10, was apparentlydeveloped because Earthlings have 10 fingers.
So Earthlings can write, say, 537, whichmeans 500 + 30 + 7 as (5)(102) + (3)(10) +7
Another example would be 5x2 - 50x +125 = 0, which means 5x2 - [ (5)(10) ]x + [102 + (2)(10) + 5 ] = 0.
Also, 5x2 - 50x + 125 = 0 is equivalent tox2 - 10x + 25 = 0 or x2 - (5 + 5)x + (5)(5) =0 or (x - 5) (x - 5) = 0. That is, they get twonumbers, 5 and 5, which multiplied togethergive 25, and which added together give 10.So on Earth, this equation has two, equalsolutions, x = 5.
When they had last been on the Red Dwarf,they had explored the planet of the agonoids.On their first expedition to the planet they foundonly the ruins of their civilization, but Holly wasable (naturally!) to translate an agonoidequation as: 5x2 - 50x + 125 = 0: x = 5 or 8.This was strange mathematics. The value x =5 seemed legitimate enough but x = 8 requiredsome explanation. If the agonoid numbersystem developed in a manner similar to
Earth’s, how many fingers would you saythe agonoids had?
This last problem was to see if theycould unravel information. He was ratherproud of this one - perhaps he could takeup poetry as a profitable sideline - if onlyhe could find a suitable agent.
The animals went in two by two, but somecame out by scores. For little ones born insidethe Ark came also through the doors.
The rabbits, the rats, the mice, and catshad multiplied indeed. Cooped up in the hulkfor ten long months, what else to do but breed?For every two beasts that first went in, therecame out twenty-three: An average, of course,for all the pairs in that menagerie.
But some of the beasts, the elephants andother mammals too, came out of the Ark asthey’d gone in: still two by two by two.
The rest of the horde, a seething mob, threehundred pairs all told, had bred in the Ark andso came forth increased just fifteen-fold.Imagine that scene on Ararat for Noah and allhis kin, as the animals fanned across the land!How many beasts went in?
If you were a budding space cadet attachedto the Starbug would you pass Holly’s testsand help steer the ship to safety?
Speaking as a life member of Spin DoctorsAnonymous, any solutions would beappreciated.
Again our congratulations to Paul Free andPhil McFadden for their solutions to theFebruary puzzles and thanks for theirpersistence.
Time: 18 minutes past noon. MarriagePartners: Alex - Elizabeth; Brian - Dorothy;Charles - Florence. Tango Partners: Alex -Dorothy; Brian - Florence; Charles - Elizabeth.Rusty: Dora.
32 SIXTEEN BITS April 1999
Please NoteThe files described in this article are on theFebruary 1999 CD-ROM (PsL Vol 7, #2) whichis currently on the Bulletin Board: All are ZIPfiles.
The text files, CD1 to 7 inclusive, in Area 1 ofthe Bulletin Board, are the monthly CD-ROMfile lists.
Reminder
Most CD-ROM programs are Shareware. Areasonable time (generally one month) isallowed for evaluation, but if you continue touse a program beyond this time you shouldcomply with the author’s conditions thatusually require payment of a registration fee.Bear in mind that this is the only way by whichan author receives any reward for his/herefforts. Unless otherwise stated registrationfees are in US dollars.
(Files marked with an asterisk are 32-bitand will not run under Windows 3.1)
AUDIO
CDMAX167* (324090 bytes)CDmax 1.6.7 is a powerful audio CD playerfor Win95. Features include the ability to storeartist/title/track on each of your CDs, fullCDDB support, a built-in volume control, theability to minimise to the System Tray, andmuch more. Reg Fee $0
EARDEMO1* (2398976 bytes)EarSaver is a revolutionary virtual ambientmusic and soundscape player specificallydesigned to create background music andsound for the computer. It is like an audio-based screensaver that can be used while youperform your normal everyday computingtasks. Requires a Pentium 133 or better andWin95/98/NT. Reg Fee $29.95
MMSETUP (6580185 bytes)MusicMatch Jukebox 2.46 allows you todigitally record and MP3-encode tracks fromyour CD library in a single step, and create CD-quality MP3 files at speeds of up to 5x fasterthan normal play speed. The Jukebox lets yourecord all your favourite songs onto your PChard drive, creating a database for playingcustomised song-lists. Multiple record modes(digital and analog) and compression modes(MP3, RealAudio and .WAV) allow you tocustomise the recording process. Reg Fee $?
MP3EXE5E (815634 bytes)MP3 to EXE 1.5 allows you to create self-playing MP3 songs. While the song is playedyou can change the Volume, see a VU-Meter,change the position in the MP3-Song, Loop theSong, view the TAGs with information aboutthe song, and more. Reg Fee $15
CALCULATORS
MATCALC* (374529 bytes)MatCalc32 3.0 a desktop calculator for Win95/98/NT that allows you to manipulate matricesand to perform common (and some not-so)matrix algebra calculations. Reg Fee $?
SLCSETUP* (2224429 bytes)Simple Loan Calculator 1.0 is an easy to use,but highly flexible loan calculator. You caneasily solve for loan payments, principals, orterms. You can compare loans with the loancomparison tab where you can see summariesof up to 3 loans you select. Requires Win95/98.Reg Fee $8.95
GAMES
BLOKE (688370 bytes)Bomb Riot for Windows 1.11 is a fun game forup to four players, where you run around amaze dropping bombs, trying to destroy eachother. The winner of a game is the last playerleft alive. Reg Fee $?
BMS_FC4 (5512701 bytes)Burning Monkey Solitaire is a fun solitaire cardgame with amusing graphics and sound effects.You play the game on a stage, surrounded byan audience of wisecracking monkeys.Features include several versions of solitaire, a‘cheat’ mode, casino scoring options, and muchmore. Reg Fee $14.95
BOMBY721 (417795 bytes)Bomby 7.21 is a fun two-player arcade gamewhere the object is to collect gems from atwisting maze while avoiding monsters. Barrier
LIBRARYSOFTWARE
…by
Phi
l Tru
ding
er
SIXTEEN BITS April 1999 33
walls are destroyed using bombs. Featuresinclude excellent graphics, a musicalsoundtrack, and more. Reg Fee $15
CROSSP81 (471352 bytes)Crossword Power 8.01 is a powerful menu-driven crossword puzzle generator.createcrossword puzzles and kriss-kross activities.Quickly create a variety of activities from eachvocabulary word list. Reg Fee $40-$199
NIMSCRB1* (599764 bytes)Nimmer’s MiniScrabble is a word/board gamewhere you to place as many letters in the gridon the board by building words out of randomlysupplied letters. This is ideal for both childrenand grown ups, who can compete to see whocan get the most points. Requires Win95. RegFee $15
SOL98* (2409523 bytes)SolSuite 98 3.5 is a collection of 160 differentsolitaire games for Win95/98. Features includedetailed instructions for each game, a highscore listing, game statistics, and much more.Reg Fee $19.95
STRLIGHT* (4364648 bytes)StrayLight is a logic/puzzle game where theobject is to reassemble a scrambled circuitboard. It features great graphics and a nicedrag-drop interface. There are many gamevariations, including a unique two-player racemode. Requires Win95/98. Reg Fee $16
TEASMZ1* (2073960 bytes)Treasure Maze 1.2a is an amalgamation of astrategy game with a game of chance. It isplayed by two, three or four players whocompete with each other to collect treasures ina maze, while avoiding dragons. RequiresWin95 running on a 486 or Pentium PC with 8MB or more of RAM. Reg Fee $5
TSP20* (3690444 bytes)Turbo Solve! Pro 2.0 is a powerful word-puzzlesolving program for Win’95/NT, capable ofsolving a wide variety of word puzzles includingcrosswords, anagrams, in-words, pair-uppuzzles, word searches, etc. Features include a140,000-word core dictionary, user dictionaryfacilities and a 5 million synonym thesaurus.Reg Fee $45
WARI (340921 bytes)Wari 2000 is a Windows version of an ancientAfrican strategy game. The goal of the game isto capture as many ‘stones’ or playing piecesas possible from the pits on the game board.Requires Windows 3.1 or better. Reg Fee $10
GRAPHICS
ICCEDIT* (699174 bytes)Icon Collector 3.00 is an icon creation/management package for Win95/NT. Features
include a built-in editor, a screen capturing tool,clipboard support, a duplicate finder, fileconversion tools, printing options, and muchmore. Reg Fee $25-$40
MMFTY20 (1384296 bytes)Multimedia Factory 2.0 is a comprehensivegraphics package that consists of five sections:a graphics section, graphics reduct-ion, paintsection, sound section and a video section. RegFee $29.95
TBULBS31* (1384589 bytes)Twinkle Bulbs 3.1 lets you hang a string ofvirtual holiday lights from the top of your Win95desktop. Features include a variety of bulbs tochoose from, MIDI background music, screensavers, and more. Reg Fee $15
ZRINGS32* (1498311 bytes)ZoneRings from Outer Space creates mesmer-ising patterns on your Win95 desktop. Thisincludes over 200 preset abstract patterns,which can be be adjusted with over 50 slidercontrols and buttons. A screen saver module isalso included. Reg Fee $0
INTERNET
AYMAIL16* (163374 bytes)AY Mail 1.6 allows you to send e-mail tomultiple locations at the same time. You cancustomise each message to include therecipient name and/or address. Other featuresinclude the ability to attach up to 20 files to yourmessage, support for customised headers, andmore. Requires Win95/98/NT. Reg Fee $29.95
DLMASTER* (3156177 bytes)Download Master allows for simultaneousdownloads of several files from the Internet.Features include background operation, adetailed help file, drag and drop support, andmuch more. Requires Win95/98/NT. Reg Fee$29
EPSETUP (1000700 bytes)EditPlus 1.21 is an Internet-ready, full-featuredtext file editor for HTML, C/C++ and Java.Features include syntax highlighting, HTMLToolbar, user tools and help files, autocompletion, cliptext library, multiple settings, theability to edit large files, powerful undo/redo,word wrap, line number, drag and drop editing,powerful search and replace, spell checker,splitter window, keystroke recording, and more.Reg Fee $20
LINKFOX* (379066 bytes)LinkFox 99 is a web acceleration package thatallows you to efficiently choose what pagesyou want to visit next and conveniently pre-loadthem to your browser’s cache. Save the linksfor future sessions if you wish, and you can setLinkFox to automatically reload them when youstart your browser. Requires Win95/98/NT.Reg Fee $29.95
NETVAMP* (1487852 bytes)Net Vampire 3.01 is a universal downloadmanager you can use to find, schedule anddownload files from FTP and Web servers.Just drag the link from your browser to a small
34 SIXTEEN BITS April 1999
floating window, and the program will get thefile for you. It can find alternate locations of thefile on the Internet, test the sites foraccessibility and speed, establish a dial-upconnection when scheduled, and startdownloading. Requires Win95/98/NT. (AlexShovkoplyas) Reg Fee $?
NPR10 (1495321 bytes)NewsPro 1.0 is a newsreader that wasdesigned to deal with multiple news servers.Requires Win65/98/NT. (Alexander Birzh) RegFee $25
O3532B10* (1196902 bytes)Opera (32-bit) 3.50 is a web browser, usenetnews reader, and email client for Win95/NT.(Opera Software) Reg Fee $30
OESETUP* (729317 bytes)Offline Explorer 1.0 allows you to downloadyour favourite web sites for later offlineviewing, editing or browsing. It also has manyweb development features that will allow youto easily edit, view or browse your down-loaded web pages. It allows you to selectively(include or exclude) individual servers,directories, and files using only keywords.Requires Win95/98/NT. Reg Fee $30
TFINGER (1087217 bytes)Total Finger implements the Finger Inform-ation Protocol, which provides the interface toa remote user information program (RUIP).You can use Total Finger to connect to theremote host and retrieve the information aboutthe particular user, or, by sending the empty
query, you can get the information about userswho are currently on-line. Reg Fee $20
MISCELLANEOUS
KAPIANW1 (1081431 bytes)KaPian for Windows 1.00 is a Chinese flashcard-type study program. It offers 10 studymethods; so you can study Romanisation,English, or Chinese characters; PinYinvocabulary; four sample lessons in Wade-Gile,Yale, Cantonese, and Japanese; and long/shortform characters. This will work with allversions of Windows. Reg Fee $20
KKPROA* (2038362 bytes) +KKPROB* (1707570 bytes)Kith and Kin Pro 1.00 is an excellent programfor documenting and storing family trees.Features include a nice graphic interface,relational database, user-defined fields, multiplenotes, SQL queries, WEB pages export,international settings, and much more. RequiresWin95/98 Reg Fee $55
MOMATH5 (270557 bytes)Money Math for Windows 3.1 providesfinancial analysis tools capable of calculatingAnnuities, Bank Discount, Bonds, CD’s,Compound Interest, Discounted Cash Flow,Loan Amortisation, and Simple Interest in tendifferent dialog boxes. Overall, more thanforty-five different unknown variables can becalculated. Extensive Windows help is availablefor each calculation dialog box including 12detailed examples. Reg Fee $26
PRNAPP70* (3107793 bytes)Printer’s Apprentice 7.0 is an excellent screenand printer font viewing utility. It providesconnections to the Clipboard, ATM, ControlPanel, and more. Other features include a user-editable sample text box, both capital and lowercase spec sheets, batch printing, TrueType fontsupport, and more. Requires Win95/98/NT.Reg Fee $25
SPANBWIN (266633 bytes)Spanish Helper for Business 2.3 helps thosewho have learned or are learning Spanish andneed to concentrate on business Spanish. Theinteractive quizzing system allows you to learnrapidly using either the contents of its own largedatabase of vocabulary, or by using lists thatyou compose in order to quiz yourself. Reg Fee$20
SPANHWIN (436840 bytes)Spanish Helper for Windows Level One 2.3 isan interactive quizzing system allows you tolearn Spanish vocabulary rapidly. It contains alarge database of vocabulary allowing you toform your own quiz lists, as well as an on-linegrammar help program. Files created in theDOS version of this program can be imported.Reg Fee $25
WRBDISK1 (1404569 bytes) +WRBDISK2 (1443219 bytes) +WRBDISK3 (1378416 bytes) +WRBDISK4 (169863 bytes)Word Report Builder is an easy to useMicrosoft Word based reporting tool for yourdatabase applications. It allows the rapidconstruction of reports as forms, columnarreports and master detail reports Reg Fee $10
ORGANISERS
3DVCP44 (1712950 bytes)Visual Calendar Planner 4.4 is a customisablecalendar program that provides scheduling,events, memos and appointments. Reg Fee $30
CTX32310* (4026293 bytes)CATraxx 98 3.10 allows you to easily organiseyour music collection in Win95. There are fieldsfor track, artist, title, format, release date, label,catalog number, condition, playing time, price,value, tracks, songwriters, producers, studios,musicians and instru-ments. Other featuresinclude powerful search facilities, and a varietyof printed reports. Reg Fee $60
DATACH09* (5687847 bytes)DataChart 0.93 provides a way to harness thenumeric information contained in databasetables, by creating charts as pictorial repres-entations. The flexibility of this tool allow you toexplore the information visually, allowing faster
SIXTEEN BITS April 1999 35
interpretation of patterns embedded in the data.Requires Win95/NT. Reg Fee $25
JNKDRW20* (2694846 bytes)Junkdrawer Information Manager 2.00provides a great way to store and retrieve anyinformation that can be placed into a text file.Long filenames and long labels are supported.The program changes labels and foldersdynamically at runtime, and saves changes to aconfiguration file. Requires Win95/NT. RegFee $19.95
KNOWBASE (463748 bytes)Personal Knowbase 1.1 is an informationorganiser that allows you to store and indextext information using keywords. You can enterinformation directly or read from text, Cardfile,and HTML files. Tag commonly used items forquick reference. Reg Fee $39.95
MYDIARY1* (6080165 bytes)MyDiary 1.00 will help simplify your day-to-day diary management. Features include multi-user support, data encryption, printing options,and more. The indexed database will ensurethe fastest possible text searching throughoutthe diary database. Requires Win95/98/NT.Reg Fee $5-$40
PRIMO240* (3501684 bytes)Primo 2.40 is a powerful personal informationmanagement package that allows you tomanage all your personal information easily,clearly and efficiently. In addition to manage-ment of your appointments, addresses, things to
do and notes, it can manage your inventory,your collections and receipts as well as yourbudget. Requires Win95/98/NT. Reg Fee $21
RBO22* (1478861 bytes)RedBox Organiser 2.2 is an all-in-one personalinformation package with a calendar, To-Dolist, anniversary list, business plan scheduler, acontact manager, sticky notes, report generator,alarm reminder, message notifi-cation andmore. Requires Win95/NT. Reg Fee $40
WZFLDR31 (925920 bytes)WhizFolders for Windows 3.1 allows you tomanage your free-format information easilyand effectively. You can record your notes andideas instantly into separate topics withoutworrying about file names and directories. Uselong descriptive names for your notes, easilyretrieve and view them, search through themfor information and insert hypertext jumps. RegFee $25
SECURITY
BCRYPT6B* (1168390 bytes)BestCrypt 6.03 is a data encryption system forWin95/98/NT. It uses Blowfish, GOST 28147-89 and DES, and provides unparalleledprotection against unauthorised data access. Itsupports encrypted logical disks and works withall kinds of media, including network-accessibledisks. Reg Fee $?
I_M421AW* (579726 bytes)Integrity Master for Windows 4.21a is an anti-virus and data integrity system for Win95/NT.It can help protect against hardware glitches,software bugs, CMOS changes, and evendeliberate sabotage. If a virus strikes, theprogram identifies it by name and also identifiesany viral damage. Reg Fee $49.50
LOCKIT25 (1942175 bytes)ScreenLock 2.5 provides easy, yet secureaccess to your desktop while denying othersattempts to access Windows. Keep intrudersand unwanted visitors from invading yourprivacy and track their unauthorised attempts toaccess your system. It is unlocked viaanswering a question that you provide
yourself and can change or edit at any time.Reg Fee $19.95
PASSGEN (274090 bytes)Password Generator generates truly randomeight-character passwords for use in securityprograms, networks, BBSs, etc. Reg Fee $0
UM260* (338036 bytes)Uninstall Manager 2.60 lets you safely removeunwanted software and return your system toits original state. It takes a ‘snap-shot’ of yourhard drive, and makes a backup of the startupand registry files. It shows you all changes thathave been made from the last ‘snapshot’ andallows you to easy delete any additions.Requires Win95/98. Reg Fee $12.95
UTILITIES
BABYCRB2* (1511273 bytes)The EP Baby Screensaver Creator allows youto create animated baby screensavers usingyour baby photographs. You can add greetingswith your choice of fonts, sizes, colours, styles,and shadowing effects. Choose from aselection of professional tiled backdrops.Requires Win95/98/NT. Reg Fee $10.95
CCLIP10* (1076088 bytes)Classic Clipboard 1.00 is a multiple clipboardand clip library for Win95/NT. Just copy in thenormal way up to nine times, then paste yourclips using Ctrl+1 for the first, Ctrl+2 for thesecond, etc. You can save over 3000 clips - 96in each of 32 groups. Reg Fee $40
EI98* (2536620 bytes)E-Icons 98 lets you customise shell icons onyour system easily and quickly. You cancustomise Desktop, Start Menu, Drives,Folders and various icons, you can load orcreate your own icon themes and it also givesyou the opportunity to assign an icon to anyfolder. Requires Win95/98. Reg Fee $?
FW121 (870385 bytes)
36 SIXTEEN BITS April 1999
FW20* (3235576 bytes)FileWrangler 3.0 is a powerful file manage-ment package for Windows. It allows you toZIP/UNZIP files, view files, span disks, createself-extracting EXE files, protect importantfiles, copy/move/rename/deletes file, and muchmore. Reg Fee $44.95
INVSBPRO* (826601 bytes)Invisible! Pro 1.5 makes the colour behind thecaptions of your desktop icons transparent sothat your wallpaper shows through. You canchange the text colour of your desktop iconcaptions. Requires Win95/98. Reg Fee $10
MAUIMAJK (2420345 bytes)Maui Magic Screen Saver displays beautifulimages of the Hawaiian Islands in a slideshowfashion. Reg Fee $12.95
MBM382* (1443455 bytes)MotherBoard Monitor 3.82 provide you withinformation about your motherboard’stemperature, voltages, fan speeds and CPUtemperature. Requires Win95/98/NT. Reg Fee$0
OFTOY983* (1117173 bytes)Office Toys 98 98.3 is a collection of powerfuladd-ins for Word 98, including an envelopemanager, an interactive font and paragraphformatter, the ability to run up to 21 commandsin an automated batch process, a fast find andreplace function, and much more. Reg Fee $40
PHNPLS32* (747058 bytes)Phone Plus 3.2 is a telephone dialler withoptional Caller ID and speaker phone support.Features include multiple phone books and calllogging. Requires Win95/NT. Reg Fee $20
PZIP40* (1144501 bytes)PowerZip 4.02 is a compression program forWindows 95/98/NT. It supports a large numberof compression formats, including ZIP, ARJ,RAR, CAB, TAR, GZ, Z and LZH. Itcombines a convenient, intuitive user interfacewith flexiblility and advanced options such asZIP encryption and multi-disk zip support. RegFee $20
SPCL12A (394771 bytes)Speaking Clock 1.2a provides a talking clock onyour Windows desktop. This version comeswith English, but you can download otherlanguages from the author’s website. Reg Fee$0
STSHMG33* (2407779 bytes)Startup&Shutdown Launcher 3.10 allows youto control programs that run when Win95/NTstarts up or shuts down. You can set differentrun criteria for your programs, run at certaintimes of the day, days of the week, once amonth, or once a year. It can execute different
sets for different User profiles, and can displaycustom messages when programs run withuser-defined actions to take Reg Fee $28-$32
TSFXENTC* (1501598 bytes)TurboSFX is a compact suite of wizards andtools that makes creating self-extractingexecutable (SFX), ZIP, CAB, and installer fileseasy, using intuitive step-by-step procedures.Requires Windows 95/98/NT. Reg Fee $59.95
TZXENTA (1080052 bytes)TurboZIP Express 1.01 is designed to makeworking with ZIP and CAB archive fileseasier. Its intuitive interface enables you to useit immediately, without extensive training. Afive-topic, five-minute ‘How To’ tutorial,complete with illustrations, is included to showyou just how simple it can be. Reg Fee $29
WHOCLL30* (3760546 bytes)Who’s Calling 3.0 is a caller ID package forWindows 95/98/NT. It stores your phonenumbers in a phonebook and upon matching anincoming phone number with a number in yourphonebook alerts you as to the caller’s identity.It can also email you at work whenever youreceive a call, with the number, the name of thecaller (if found) and the time and date of thecall. Reg Fee $?
WINDR32* (1534091 bytes)Winter Dreams Screensavers will draw anddecorate your screen with winter landscapesand holiday scenes. The elements in a sceneare drawn randomly each cycle so every sceneis different. Requires Win95/98/NT. Reg Fee$10
WINLOADR* (839775 bytes)WinLoader 4.02 gives you specific control overthe way Windows loads. You edit a script file
that it reads to load programs at startup. Youcan designate how to load programs, byspecifying an area in your Registry or yourStartup folder or by utilising the load and runvalues of your Win.ini file. This provides theopportunity to consolidate these entries into asingle format, giving you much greater controlover the process. Requires Win95/98. Reg Fee$?
WINPOP (2666600 bytes)Winpop Plus 1.3 is a powerful instant pop-upmessage utility that remotely runs applications,sends messages, chats, open documents, closesprocesses and much more on multiplecomputers over the network. Winpop Plusreplaces the simple windows messaging pop-upwith a much more powerful and feature-richpop-up message system. Reg Fee $50
NEW AND UPDATEDDOS PROGRAMS
ACROSS13 (1273560 bytes)Action SuperCross 1.3 is a motorcyclesimulation game based on a real physicalmodel, where you must navigate through thevarious stages on your bike. Requires DOS 5.0,486DX-33, 8MB RAM and VGA. Reg Fee$19
I_M421A (445669 bytes)Integrity Master 4.21 is an anti-virus and dataintegrity system. The author says it detects allknown viruses. It can detect any form of filecorruption, including disk errors or as yetunknown viruses. Stacker, DoubleSpace,SuperStore and Bernoulli system files aresupported. Identifies the new MS Word Macroviruses as well as over 640 additional viruses. It
SIXTEEN BITS April 1999 37
has an option to quickly disinfect diskettes.(Wolfgang Stiller) (ASP) Reg Fee $50
JOCMNU20 (125705 bytes)JOC-MENU 2.0 is a pull-down DOS menusystem with mouse support, a built-in screensaver, low memory usage, calculator/calendar,a hypertext help system, and more. Reg Fee$20
JOCCAL20 (129316 bytes)JOC-CALC 2.0 is an easy-to-use spreadsheetpackage for DOS. Features include a pull downmenu system with mouse support, a hypertexthelp system, support for block operations, built-in math/trig functions, and more Reg Fee $20
and his eventual costs were $1600 or so (he purchased a22MB drive for $590). A horrible tale indeed. Karl Auerwrote about a terminal configuration program in C.Michael Lightfoot (Apologies for calling him ‘Malcolm’ in mylast column) wrote about Unix devices, and the upcoming newstandard for Windowing systems call X11 (x-windows). PeterHarris wrote about the evils of software piracy, whilst Will Faithfulreviewed Instaplan, Word 5, KeepTRAK and the genius mouse.Tony Sollazzo wrote about the hardware of the 8086 CPU,and someone was attempting to sell a TRS-80 model 100 laptop
Ten Years ago in Sixteen Bits �Compiled by Andrew Clayton from:
Volume 6, Number3, April 1989
:
The editorial expressed hope that the monthly meetingon “IBM’s Presentation Manager in OS/2" wouldn’t bea disaster like Bill Gates’ October 1988 presentation.The Secretary (Tony Solazzo) signalled a change in theway the group works, from a ‘make do with what we canscrounge’ to a more business oriented approach — thegroup was looking to get accommodation (not achieveduntil 1993), and hiring people on a full or part time basis.Rod Dunne wrote a very interesting article onpurchasing and installing a hard disk into his existing(floppy only) machine. His 10MB hard disk cost $560,
JOCSCR20 (184820 bytes)JOC Screen Designer 2.0 is a powerful screeneditor that allows you to generate source codein up to 25 different formats including: C,PASCAL, BASIC, CLIPPER, COBOL,ASSEMBLER, PCX, BMP, ANSI, ANSI, andmore. It also generates TSR programs insource code (Assembler + C). You can buildtext screens with input fields, colours and a lotof tools in minutes. Reg Fee $20
LETTER31 (2102986 bytes)Letter Writer 3.1 is a powerful notepadreplacement, with features such as font control,date/time insertion, the ability to open large
documents, and more. Requires Win95/98/NT,5MB hard disk space, and 8MB RAM. RegFee $19.95
PCAL1503 (190173 bytes)Personal Calendar 15.03 displays a three-month scrollable calendar, a running analog anddigital clock, and appointment and note lists.The program will alert you when a scheduledevent is coming due or overdue. By swappingto EMS or hard disk, the program only uses 6kof DOS RAM. Reg Fee $39
SCN_321E (821571 bytes)VirusScan 3.2.1 scans diskettes or entiresystems and identifies any pre-existing PCvirus infection. Reg Fee $65
SHOWF251 (31213 bytes)ShowFAT 2.51 graphically displays the physicallayout of the files on a disk. Reg Fee $20
Volunteer Comms Expert
TIP requires a competent Commsexpert with experience with Ciscodevices, preferably the AS series ofaccess servers. Initially this person willassist our comms person, but it is hopedthat eventually much of the work canbe taken off his hands.
It would be preferable if we wereable to attract two new volunteers forthis task as that would make for lighterload on each person.
Remember, if you have specificUnix/Internet/Comms skills the TIPadmin team is always looking for freshfaces.
38 SIXTEEN BITS April 1999
…by
Mal
colm
Mor
rison
Download Internet Explorer 5This release of Microsoft’s award-winningWeb browsing technology makes using theWeb simpler than ever, more automated, andmore flexible to let you use the Web the wayyou want. In short, Internet Explorer 5 bringsIntelliSense to the Web to save you time onthe things you do most often. Features likeWeb Accessories let you customize yourbrowser to suit your needs.What is IntelliSense?Originally introduced in Microsoft Office,IntelliSense technology is designed to saveyou time by automating routine tasks andsimplifying complex tasks. By buildingIntelliSense throughout Internet Explorer 5,from detecting network status to simplifyingbasic navigation, Internet Explorer 5 makesthe Web easier and more accessible foreveryone.Here’s what you get when you download thefull install of Internet Explorer 5 and InternetTools. Internet Explorer 5 Web browser: Thebrowser that brings Intellisense to the Web tosave you time on the things you do mostoften. Outlook Express 5: Easily send e-mailand subscribe to Internet newsgroups.Automatically filter out junk mail. Usecolourful e-mail stationery to grab yourreader’s eye, or create your own stationery tomatch your style. Windows Media Player 6.0:Microsoft Windows Media Player upgradesthe previous versions of Media Player,NetShow player, and ActiveMovie player andplays most multimedia content formatslocated on the Internet or your computer,including Advanced Streaming Format (ASF),Real Audio/RealVideo 4.0, QuickTime, AVI,WAV, MPEG, MP3 and more. Chat 2.5:Communicate in chat rooms on the Internet.In the optional ‘comic-strip’ mode, let yourtrue feelings be known by choosing your owncharacter and facial expressions. NetMeeting2.11: At home, use your computer as avideophone to see and talk to family orfriends. At work, hold business meetings andshare programs to collaborate on projectsover the Web. FrontPage Express 2.0:
FrontPage Express makes it easy for first-time Web authors to create Web pageswithout having to learn the HTMLprogramming language. Web PublishingWizard 1.6: Use this step-by-step tool topublish your own pages on the Web.Microsoftvirtual machine: Offline Browsing Pack:Improve your experience when you browseWeb pages while not connected to the Web.A must-have if you use a laptop or have hadproblems while browsing offline. Wallet 3:Make shopping at secure Web sites easy,quick, and safe by storing your credit cardnumbers and address information in a virtual‘wallet’ on your own computer.
What ’s New in ICQ 99a Beta?
ICQ 99a has been released with lots of newfeatures - look at www.icq.com for fulldetails!
Corel to bring Linux to the desktopPlans include ‘invisible’ Linux OperatingSystem and user-friendly interface.Corel Corporation has announced its plan tointroduce a user-friendly, easy to installinterface for the Linux Operating System(OS), at the LinuxWorld conference in SanJose, California.At the first major trade show devoted tocommercial applications in Linux OS, Corelpresident and chief executive officer Dr.Michael Cowpland announced the expectedNovember release. “We plan to simplifyLinux by creating an easily accessible desktopenvironment,” said Dr. Cowpland. “Linux willthen be available to all computer users whowish to experience its benefits.”The emphasis of the new Corel version ofLinux will be on simple installation and agraphical user interface (GUI) that sits on topof the operating system, similar to those used
on the Windows or Macintosh OS. Corel isalso anticipating Linux versions of itsWordPerfect Office 2000 this year, andCorelDRAW and Corel PHOTO-PAINT forLinux in 2000. “The difficult-to-use reputationof Linux will be left behind,” said Dr.Cowpland. “Everyone will be able toexperience the power and stability of Linuxwithout learning complicated codes.” Formore information visit Corel’s Web site atwww.corel.com.
Corel Launches Designe r.com Corel Corporation has unveiled a worldpreview of “Designer.com,” its brand newgraphics community Web site. This interactivesite can be found at www.designer.com and isdesigned to cater specifically to the graphicscommunity. It features a wide range of usefulinformation for novice and expert graphicdesigners alike, making it a valuable resourcewithin the design community.One component of the site, called Focus,features exclusive articles and columns frompeople in the industry, as well as monthlydesigner profiles. Focus also contains aLearning Center, featuring helpful tips andtricks for using Corel graphics products.Users are invited to send their questions tothe Ask the Experts section, where theirqueries will be addressed by an expert atCorel or redirected to an appropriate contactwithin the greater graphics industry.The Web site also offers a variety of design-related links from around the Web, allowingaccess to specific areas of graphic designaccording to the user’s own individual needs.
IBM, Dell in $16 billion Pact
IBM and Dell have announced a $16 billionagreement which calls for massive purchasesof Big Blue’s products by the PC maker. Dellwill purchase storage, microelectronics,networking, and display technology from IBMfor integration into Dell computer systems,”
according to the announcement. Down theroad, the agreement is also slated to includeIBM’s cutting-edge chip technologies,including copper and silicon-on-insulator.
Microsoft Revamps Web CommerceSoftware Line
The software giant has acquiredCompareNet, a San Francisco company thatprovides product databases and comparisonshopping information for Web sites.CompareNet will be integrated intoMicrosoft’s Sidewalk city guides, addinganother 1.5 million unique visitors permonth, Microsoft said.Microsoft’s new Passport product, which wasacquired last year with Firefly Network, is asecure electronic wallet that consumers willbe able to use on its MSN portal and third-party sites that license the technology.Passport has been licensed by TRUSTe andthe Better Business Bureau Online, part ofMicrosoft’s emphasis on the importance ofpersonal privacy for consumers.Other new services for small businessesinclude Web site building and hosting. A newcomponent is BizTalk, which enablesbusinesses of all sizes to integrate e-commerce applications and share data,serving as a framework for the many piecesrequired to do commerce online.
Dell delivers New Pentium IIIDell Computer Corporation the world’sleading direct computer systems company,has announced a new line of Dimensiondesktop PCs with Intel’s new Pentium® IIIprocessors for enhanced performance inanimation, imaging, motion video, speechrecognition, audio and 3D geometry. The newDimension® XPS T series with 450MHz and500MHz versions of the Pentium IIIprocessors are available with prices startingat A$ 3,339 (w/tax, no freight). Dell plans toadd the Pentium III 550 MHz processor onthe Dimension XPS T series later this year.
Apple’s Aims
In an interview with the Nihon KeizaiShimburn, Steve Jobs has said Apple wouldfollow the Sony model and develop computersthat could be “easily integrated withconsumer electronics and householdappliances”.Sony’s VAIO range of computers includeconnections for audio and video equipmentand come with home-editing softwarepreinstalled. Apple has Final Cut, a video-audio editing package that some say intrudeson its close relationship with Adobe Systems.Then there is FireWire, the networking,connectivity system that is clearly miles aheadin terms of speed and flexibility. It is alreadyregarded as the standard for home digitalnetworking.
Universal Plug and Play
More from Microsoft - it’s the end of theworkday, and before leaving the office, youdownload your grocery list from your homenetwork onto your Palm-size PC. Once at thestore, you decide it’s time to break away fromthe same old dinner options, so you consult akiosk for a meal that’s quick and tasty. Therecipe for chicken almondine sounds good, soyou download it from the store kiosk ontoyour Palm-size PC.You can’t remember if you have chicken athome, so once again you consult your Palm-size PC, which accesses the refrigeratorattached to your home network. You find thatyou’re out of chicken, so you go ahead andbuy some. Upon arriving home, you use thetablet on your refrigerator door to call up therecipe you downloaded onto your Palm-sizePC and proceed to cook your dinner.Once imaginable only in the realm of sciencefiction, scenarios like this will soon bepossible, thanks to a technology calledUniversal Plug and Play.Unlike the Jini model promoted by SunMicrosystems, Universal Plug and Play isbased upon standard Internet protocols. This
architecture allows Universal Plug and Playto work with a broad range of devices fromlarge PCs to small consumer electronicsdevices. It also eliminates the need forcomplex testing to ensure devices can worktogether.
Millennium Promises to RevolutioniseComputing As We Know It
Enter Millennium, Microsoft’s distributedoperating system research project. Millenniumaims to turn a network of computerizeddevices into one, giant computer thatresembles the human brain, allocatingresources efficiently to accomplish each task.Millennium would automatically clear abottleneck by replicating a Web site’s dataonto other servers and desktop computersacross the Internet that are currentlyunderused. When traffic to your Web sitedrops, Millennium would again reallocate thenetwork’s resources to best meet the level ofdemand on the network.If successful, Millennium will transformcomputing to more closely resemble thehuman brain, which works behind the scenesto distribute information in a highly complex,yet efficient manner. Microsoft Researchhopes to incorporate some of its researchresults into Microsoft products within the nextfew years.The goal of Millennium is to erase thedistinction between distributed and localcomputing. While work will be distributedamong the computerized devices in anetwork, from the user’s perspective it willappear as if everything is happening rightthere on their desktop computer.
Sony Protection Solutionsfor Digital Music Content
Sony Corporation has announced thedevelopment of new copyright managementtechnologies that could revolutionize the wayin which digital music content is delivered,used, and enjoyed. The company willpromote the solutions to the music andtechnology industries and propose them tothe Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI).Two new content protection technologies,tentatively called “MagicGate” and“OpenMG” will provide an urgently neededimmediate solution for protecting digital musicon personal computers and audio player/recorders.
40 SIXTEEN BITS April 1999
The Internet Project
SIXTEEN BITS April 1999 41
Disks & TapesWe offer high quality disks and tape cartridgesin various formats at very reasonable prices.Disks & tapes are available from the PCUGCentre Monday, Wednesday & Friday 10am to2pm or between 9am and 5pm on weekends.
BBS AccessNew members wishing to access the PC UsersGroup (ACT) InterActive Bulletin BoardService (BBS) should dial (02) 6253 4933 andcreate an account on the system. Once the mainmenu is presented, select the ‘Goodbye’ optionfollowed by the ‘Yes’ option to leave a messageto the Sysop.
In this message state your membership number(from your card or magazine address label) andrequest an access upgrade. This will usuallyoccur within a few days.
SharewareMembers have access to a huge selection of‘shareware’ software. The PCUG subscribesto a CD-ROM which provides over 250 Mb ofnew and updated software titles on eachmonthly CD.
One complete section of the permanent libraryis also contained on each CD-ROM. Inaddition, there are many programs on thePCUG BBS which members have uploaded orwhich come from other sources.
This software is provided as ‘shareware’. Ifyou continue to use it, you must register thesoftware with the author. The Group does not‘sell’ the software - it charges a fee to coverthe cost of obtaining the software, maintainingthe library and copying the software to themember.
Computers are available at the Centre whichare connected to the BBS enabling members todownload software.
Hardware & Video LibraryThe hardware and video library is located atthe PC Users Group Centre. Items may becollected and returned on Saturdays andSundays between 9am and 5pm (loans are forone week). Please bring your membership cardwith you.
We now have aGiveaway Table at the
PCUG Centre.
If you have any SMALLitems of computer relatedequipment (software orhardware) that you nolonger need or use and
don’t want to throwaway, put them on thetable and someone else
may find a use for them.
Just bring them to theCentre when it’s open and
we’ll pass them onfor you.
The library provides access to equipmentwhich members would not normally havereadily available. Most items have instructionsmanuals and software where appropriate.Modems do not include software; check theShareware Library for suitable packages. Itemsmay be borrowed for one week. There is nocharge, but you must collect and return theitems yourself.
Equipment available includes:
• modems (33.6k and 14.4k)
• zip drives.
Videos include:
• Developing Applications with MicrosoftOffice
• Using Windows 95
Member ServicesThese special offers and services are only available to PCUG members.Please bring your memberhip card with you when collecting orders.
Stuffed Again
We are always looking for volunteers toassist us with the ‘stuffing’ of our journal.We start around 5.00pm (latecomers arewelcome) usually on the 2nd lastMonday of every month and aregenerally finished by 8.00pm.Refreshments are provided. If you wouldlike to help, please ring Petra Dwyer atthe PCUG Centre on 6253 4911.
Next Stuffing5.00pm Monday 22 March ‘99at Northpoint Plaza, Belconnen.
(see map page 3)
We would like to thankthe following members and friends
for assisting withthe mailing out of our Journal.
John AgnewBruce BlackOwen Cook
Eddie & Sharon de BearJim & Chris Fogg
Anne GreinerJohn Hempenstall
Emil JosephVernon Kronenberg
Neville MaddernHelen McLean
Allan MikkelsenDon Nicol
Ruth SmalleyRod Smith
John StarrGordon UrquhartMarion Van Wely
Sylvia & Lew Yardley
42 SIXTEEN BITS April 1999
& ChatThe Coffee and Chat Group meet at thePCUG Centre in Belconnen on alternateTuesdays from 10.30am to 11.30am Thedoors are open from 9.30 to 12.00 for 30minutes of individual discussion before andafter the meeting. The dates of thesemeetings are shown in the Calendar ofEvents.
BytesThe Bytes SIG is designed for those wholike to talk about computing over a meal. Itmeets from 6 pm at the Asian Bistro,Australian National University Union, onthe PCUG meeting nights. There are noBytes SIG meetings in November,December, or January. Contact person:Andrew Freeman Phone: 6258 7411 Email:[email protected] or WWW at http://www.pcug.org.au/~afreeman/cvsig.html
AutoCADGeoffrey May 6295 5942 Monday-Fri 4-5pm.Please call for details.
The Investment SIGThe group meets at the PCUG Centre at7.30pm on the fourth Thursday of everymonth except for December to discussinvestment affairs, especially the stockmarket and share ideas and information.Matters covered may be someone’s hot stock,or a tax problem or an interesting Web site,and sometimes a software demo. We arelooking for volunteers to present brief reviewsof a favourite stock. Contact Mick Preskettph 6252 5036.
The OS/2 SIGAn enthusiastic forum for those operating orinterested in OS/2 Warp. Meetings includewide ranging discussion and interesting handson demonstrations. Meetings are held on thethird Thursday (except January) at 7.00pmfor 7.30pm at the IBM Building 8 BrisbaneAve, Barton.Contact David Thrum Phone 6201 8806 (bh).Full details about the OS/2 SIG can beobtained from http://www.pcug.org.au/~aacton/os2/welcome.htm.
The Delphi SIGA lively forum for software developers whoare working with or interested in Delphi. Ourmeetings include wide ranging discussion andinteresting hands-on demonstrations. Comeand see why Delphi is RAD! Some of ourrecent meetings have discussed Delphicomponents, best shareware tools, databaseapplications, and HTML tools. Meeting 3rdTuesday of each month 7.30pm at PCUGCentre. Convenor David Gray [email protected] are welcome toalso subscribe to the PCUG Delphi mailing listby sending message ‘subscribe [email protected] [your email address]’ [email protected]
Computers and VegetarianismThis SIG is designed for those who have aninterest in both computers and vegetarianism.It generally meets with the Bytes SIG. Nomeetings are held in November, December,or January. Contact person: AndrewFreeman Phone: 6258 7411 [email protected] or WWW at http://www.pcug.org.au/~afreeman/[email protected]
Internet Daytime Demoand Discussion SIG
Meets every second Monday at the PCUGCentre from 10.00am to noon. We meet todiscuss internet issues, software, sites (andanything else of relevance), and demonstrate, onCentre equipment, selected software andtechniques. The meeting starts with informal
discussion and coffee, followed by a more in-depth look at a particular topic of interest.There is also time for discussion (andhopefully solving) of members problems withthe internet. A home page for the SIG is athttp://www.pcug.org.au/~amikkels/intddd.htmlEnquiries or suggestions for topics arewelcome at [email protected].
Linux User GroupStephen Rothwell 6231 6648 (ah) [email protected] 4th Thursday7.00pm Room N101 Computer ScienceDept ANU.
The VB SIGMeets 10am to 12Noon on alternateThursday mornings (in the Coffee & Chatweek) to discuss the tips and tricks notdisclosed in the Help files. Enquirieswelcome.Don Nicol (02) 6254 [email protected]
Flight SimulatorMeets 1.30 - 3.30 on Tuesday afternoons (ifroom available) following Coffee and Chatand on every 2nd Wed at 6.30 - 8.30 pm atthe PCUG Centre. Enquiries welcome.Roger Lowery (02) 6258 1583
The Games SIG:A SIG that runs Fridays in school holidays atthe PCUG centre.Contact John: Phone 6281 2350, [email protected], orICQ# 25886924"
SIXTEEN BITS April 1999 43
Training News
…by
Pet
er E
lliot
t
All courses are held at the PCUGCentre, Northpoint Plaza, Belconnen- maximum 8 people.
Courses cost $35 unless otherwiseindicated. Full day courses run from9.30am to approximately 3.00pm.AM Courses commence at 9.30am.PM courses commence at 1.30pm.
ContactsCOURSE BOOKINGS: Petra Dwyer, at thePCUG Centre on 6253 4911Training coordinator and course information(not bookings):Peter Elliott 6258 9806 (h) 7.00pm to9.00pmMicrosoft Product courses (not bookings):Henk Brummelaar 6258 9332 (h) 7.00pm to9.00pm
Date Day Course LengthApr 3 Sat CLOSED Full Day
4 Sun CLOSED Full Day10 Sat Desktop Publishing Intro / Internet clinic Clinic:Morning11 Sun Intro to the Internet - Full Access Full Day17 Sat Win95 – Intro (suitable for Win98 users) Full Day18 Sun Visual Basic - Intro Full Day24 Sat Intro to the Internet – Full Access Full Day25 Sun CLOSED Full Day
May 1 Sat Sixteen Bits Layout Day/Internet Clinic Clinic:Morning2 Sun Word 7 - Intro Full Day8 Sat Win95 - Intro (suitable for Win98 users) Full Day9 Sun Intro to the Internet – Full Access Full Day15 Sat Designing your own web page - Intro Full Day16 Sun Excel 7 - Intro Full Day22 Sat MYOB Full Day23 Sun Intro to the Internet – Full Access Full Day29 Sat Visual Basic - Intro Full Day30 Sun Win95 - Intro (suitable for Win98 users) Full Day
The PCUG is seeking members withsome experience ( either Win95,MYOB or Internet software eg.
Netscape), that can help out the group bytraining members on weekends. It’s voluntarywork of course, so if you’re (even slightly)interested and would like to help, please callpeter on 62589806.
The program for 1999 has been adjustedto meet the demand for particular coursesespecially Windows95 and Internet courses.PCUG Training is able to, and willing, toconduct a variety of courses in other areas ofcomputing. If you have an interest in aparticular computer course and it is notscheduled, contact Petra at the Centre at theCentre and let us know
Our training courses are very popular.Unfortunately, some people book and then donot turn up for their course. Someone on thewaiting list for the course could have filled thespot left vacant. If you have booked for acourse and are unable to attend please let Petraknow as early as possible so that anothermember can attend.
CoursesThe Full Access intro to the Internet course
is an introduction to the programs used to
access the World Wide Web including how todownload files, send and receive e-mail andparticipate in news groups. If you would like toattend the course, you will need Full Access(Advanced Access) to the Internet. Please notethat Netscape Communicator 4.05 will be usedto teach this course.
Intro to designing your own web page: Inmay there will be an intro to designing your ownweb page conducted at the Centre. The coursewill cover the basics in design and layout of aweb page and a how to use HTML.
The Win95 - Intro course is designed tointroduce members in the use of Win95 includingcreating folders and files, how to cut, copy andpaste. The course also covers lots of tips andtricks to make Win95 work for you. Please notethat if you have Win98 as an operating system,then most if not all of the content of this coursewill be applicable to Win98 users.
A Visual Basic Programming - Intro courseis planned for April. This course is designed forthose members who are interested in the popularprogramming language Visual BASIC.Participants will be taught the basics of how toprepare simple user -friendly form basedscreens. No pre-requisite of programming isrequired.
44 SIXTEEN BITS April 1999
The following local vendors offer discounts to PCUG members
• Present your PCUG membership card when making a purchase• Benefits may not apply to some sale items• The PCUG does not necessarily recommend or endorse the products being offeredIf you offer a discount to PCUG members and are not in this list, please contact our advertising manager listed on page 2.
Vendor Discount SchemeVendor Discount Scheme
SIXTEEN BITS April 1999 45
• Present your PCUG membership card when making a purchase• Benefits may not apply to some sale items• The PCUG does not necessarily recommend or endorse the products being offeredIf you offer a discount to PCUG members and are not in this list, please contact our advertising manager listed on page 2.
BUSINESS SERVICES/PRODUCTS PHONE/FAX/EMAIL ADDRESS DISCOUNT
Computer related (cont)
Bettowynd & TaltechSolutions
Prompt, gauranteed, fixedprice repairs to monitorsand terninals
Ph: 6239 1043 Unit 5, Centrecoure1 Pirie St, Fyshwick
5% discount
Hi-Micro Computers Ph: 6280 7520Fax: 6280 7540
6/18 Whyalla StFyshwick
5% discount onaccessories andupgrade installation
L & S Associates Ph: 6257 7555 69 Paterson StAinslie
Special price on anyMicrosoft product:dealer price plus 5%
NCH�Swift Sound Email to wavProfessional voice overs,music and SFX formultimedia, IVR, games,software
Ph: 6281 6124 25% discount to non-corporate members
PE Computers & SoftwareSolutions
New systemsUpgradesHardware and softwareinstallation, setup andhome PC supportSoftware tuition includingWin95 and Internetsoftware
ANU Union Asian Bistro Upstairs, UnionBuilding, UnionCourt, ANU (next tomain meeting venue)
Union memberdiscount on PCUGmain meeting nightsONLY
Green-Grass Mower Service Lawn mower service,spares and repairs
Ph: 6291 1458 8 Hutchinson StMonash
10% discount
Aspect Computing EducationServices
Ph: 6247 7608 86 Northbourne AveBraddon
10% discount
Australian ManagementControl
Ph: 6285 4888 Suite 4, 32�36Colbee Court, Phillip
5% discount onrecordkeeping andpayroll courses
46 SIXTEEN BITS April 1999
Members� Ads
FOR SALE
Annual Fees Applicable (þ one)o General1 $ 50
o Concessional2 $ 25
o Corporate3 $130
o Additional Corporate4 $ 50
o International (Air Mail) $130
Notes1 General membership covers all members of a household except for BBS and
Internet access.2 Concessions apply to full time students and pensioners.3 Corporate Membership covers up to three nominees.4 Additional Corporate nominees may be added at $50 each.
I am paying by (þ one)o Cash (if paying by person) o Cheque to PC Users Group (ACT) Inc
o Credit card –– Bankcard, Mastercard or Visa
I would like to ( þ one or more)
o Become a new member for ____ year(s)
o Renew for ____ year(s)
o Change my address details
o Change Corporate nominees
o Take my address off advertising list
o Access the Bulletin Board (BBS)
Reasons for Joining þ (one or more)
o Sixteen Bits Magazine o Training Courses
o The Internet Project o Advice and help
Other ____________________________________
TOTAL PAYMENT DUE $ __________________
Please Post your application with payment to:PC Users Group (ACT) IncPO Box 42 Belconnen ACT 2616
Additional Corporate Membership Nominees
Title Given Name Surname
Organisation (if applicable) PCUG Membership Number (if applicable)
Postal Address
Phone (h) Phone (w) Concession Type (if applicable)
The people in this directory are volunteers so please observe the times given. The Help Directory is designed to help individual users and shouldnot be used as a substitute for corporate support calls to vendors! This service is provided for members only. Please quote your membership numberto the helper. For those helpers with an asterisk *, messages may be left on the BBS in either the General message area or as a Netmail message on3:620/243. Send updates to [email protected] or via post to the PCUG Centre.
OS/2 SIG IBM Building 8 Brisbane Ave Barton 7.00 for 7.30pm
TRAINING DAY PCUG Centre 9.30am
April
Sixteen Bits commercial ad deadline for May
TRAINING DAY PCUG Centre 9.30am Intro to Windows 95 (also suitable for Windows 98 users)
Coffee and Chat PCUG Centre 9.30am– 12.00
Visual Basic SIG 10.00am–12noon PCUG Centre
Sixteen Bits article deadline for June
TRAINING DAY PCUG Centre 9.30am Visual Basic – Intro
Bytes SIG Asian Bistro ANU 6.00pm (before PCUG meeting)
Main Meeting Manning Clark Theatre 1 Crisp Bldg. ANU 7.00 for 7.30
TRAINING DAY PCUG Centre 9.30am Intro to the Internet – Full Access
Flight Simulator PCUG Centre 6.30pm–8.30pm
Sixteen Bits commercial ad deadline for June
Internet Clinic PCUG Centre 9.30– 1.00pm Layout Day for Sixteen Bits 10.00am
16 Bits Stuffing and Mailing PCUG Centre 5.00pm
Linux Users Group Room N101 Computer Science Dept ANU 7.30pm
Investment SIG PCUG Centre 7.30pm
Visual Basic SIG 10.00am–12noon PCUG Centre
Networks SIG (Call 6241 2399 for venue)
CENTRE CLOSED
CENTRE CLOSED
CENTRE CLOSED
CENTRE CLOSED
TRAINING DAY PCUG Centre 9.30am Desktop Publishing Intro
TRAINING DAY PCUG Centre 9.30am Introduction to the Internet – Full Access
Committee Meeting PCUG Centre 7.30pm
Internet Day-time Demo and Discussion SIG PCUG Centre 10.00am–2.00pm
Delphi SIG PCUG Centre 7.30pm
Coffee and Chat PCUG Centre 9.30am–12.00
Layout Day for Sixteen Bits 10.00am
Internet Clinic PCUG Centre 9.30–1.00pm
CENTRE CLOSED
N.B. The Games SIG will run Easter school hols April 9, Duke Nukem 3D (with hacks and add-ons); April 16:WarCraft 2 (with expansion pack). Both days the times will be 12:30pm-6pm
