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Intro Topics
Windows Feature - Colin Stuart
Question and Answer - Bill Marchant
Feature Topic:
Programming Contest
Tic Tac Toe programs evaluated
This was held on October 2nd and was attended by Norman DeForest, Arthur Layton, Bill Marchant, Henry Hill,Thayne MacLean and Colin Stuart The next planning meeting will be held on the Monday 30th of October, at 7,30 pm at the Institute of Technology Campus on Leeds Street.
This document is mailed to all paid up members and to anyone who has attended a meeting within the past three months. Yearly membership dues are $15.00. The text of the newsletter is available on Chebucto Community Net and other local bulletin boards.
Chairperson - David Potter
Vice-Chair - Bill Marchant - 477-2069 (h)
Secretary/Newsletter Editor - Colin Stuart - 461-0370 (h)
Treasurer - Garth Bennett - 492-3368 (h)
Disk Librarian - Thayne MacLean - 461-0082 (h)
and but not least Norman DeForest, Henry Hill, Arthur
Layton, Rob MacCara, Andy Cornwall, George Richards, and
Diane Smith
We are still awaiting a response from the WordPerfect group regarding that group possible amalgamation with us.
I (Colin Stuart) will be doing the Windows Feature this month instead of Bill Marchant. I will keep to the 3.1 version and discuss the Windows swap file. The feature topic will be our Tic-Tac-Toe programming competition. I have reprinted David Potter's article from last March which describes the contest in detail.
Please note the new mailing address for the Society:
For those of you who are not already aware, the membership expiry dates are printed in the upper right corner of your newsletter mailing label. If you wish to continue to receive this newsletter and know what interesting meetings are coming up, you either have to renew ($15 per year) or come to the meetings and put your name on the list that is passed around.
Many of us (including me) have memberships that expire within the next few months so please check.
The Metro Halifax Delphi Developers Group meets on the first Tuesday of each month at 7:00pm. The meetings are held at the CCL Group Building 2669 Dutch Village Road, Halifax.
Further information may be obtained from Dave Hackett at 835-3894, CIS:71650,2646 or from Carey Rolfe at 462 4551 or e-mail... rolfe@ra.isisnet.com.
The 8 Nov meeting will be held in the CCL Group building at 2669 Dutch Village Road, Halifax at 7:00 PM.
Commencing on 13 December the regular meetings will be held at the offices of IBM at Purdy's Wharf Tower Two in Halifax. Further information on this group may be obtained from Donovan Long at 422 1975 or by e-mail tsst@isisnet.com.
An ad will normally only appear once but let me know if you need it repeated. Ads can be given to me at meetings or give me a call two weeks to ten days before the next general meeting (newsletter deadline).
by David Potter
In response to an expressed interest in programming the Halifax Area Personal Computer Society is pleased to announce Spring Contest '95.
The contest is open to all.
Three Requirements to Win
1) Entrants will create a 'tic-tac-toe' game that can be demonstrated on an average computer that includes a relatively current version of DOS 3.3 or over, Windows 3.1 (or higher). If you wish to use some exotic programming system (such as Lotus macros..) it is Your Responsibility to confirm that you will be able to demonstrate your program at a meeting.
2) In addition to demonstrating the program you must provide a copy of the source code for the program. This source code will become available for distribution to and the Free use of members of the society.
3) The program must include the ability for a human to play against the machine. Additional ability such as for two humans to play or the computer to play both sides will add to the 'win-ability' but are not strictly required.
Prizes
There will be three prizes...
a) Best in Show
b) Members Pride for a member of the Society
c) Most Novel
Prizes include a Windows Program Manager Replacement (Value $70), a Book on Windows 95 (Value $40) and a kit that allows you to use a 'real' vacuum to clean you computer/heater crevices in you car (or clean wax out of your ears).
Last Chance to Win.
by Bill Marchant
Current rumours that IBM will stop supporting OS/2 at some time in the near future are countered by the following information gleaned from a recent IBM presentation.
IBM's software business is said to be in the order of 16 billion dollars annually. This is twice as large as the business done by its nearest rival Microsoft. Fully half of IBM's software business is in selling OS/2 and software that depends on OS/2. Remember, IBM still supports thousands of main frames, and the PCS that access them. Thus IBM's OS/2 business is the same size as Microsoft's entire business. If you believe the rumours, you are believing that IBM will voluntarily discard 8 billion dollars worth of profitable business. This is claimed to be unlikely.
by John Howard Oxley
A little over a year ago I opened this series of columns with a review of add-on products for WORD FOR WINDOWS 2.0. Now that WFW 7/95 is rolling off the shelves, I thought it would be useful to revisit these titles, to see how they have fared as enhancements for WFW 6.0. In addition, I look at a tool all heavy Web wanderers will want. As established last column, the review machine is a dual P-90 running NT 3.5, with referenced to a 486DX/66 under WINDOWS 95 as appropriate.
Upgrading, improving, and otherwise tweaking WORD FOR WINDOWS 6.0 has become a cottage industry all its own in the shareware business (which I may look at in greater detail another time) but WFW 6.0 itself is so customizable that many of the earlier utilities have lost their point. Unfortunately, this greater power, user-friendliness, and flexibility of the base product has been bought at the cost of greater resource demands and more frequent crashes. It's no exaggeration to say that a highly customized/optimized WFW 6.0 installation with the integrated Microsoft BOOKSHELF application will stretch the DOS/WINDOWS 3.x combination to (and beyond its limits).
WORD FOR WINDOWS OFFICE POWER PACK 6.0 (Pinecliffe International U$60): WOPR 6.0 in many ways typifies the attractions and drawbacks to the new generation of WFW enhancements: it is more expensive, more powerful, richer in features, and harder to use. As just one example, what attracted me to WOPR in the first place was its "2x4" tool, which allowed me to print landscape format booklets in proper folding order with two pages to the front and the back of each sheet -- easy to use and nearly bulletproof. The new version has many more options, which while giving you greatly extended flexibility, forces you to wade through a plethora of menus before it actually gets down to doing anything -- then, when it does so, it often prints the page incorrectly. Granted, it offers you a page preview which will let you pick this up and change it, but the error never even happened in the old version.
The other major functions WOPR offers have also been upgraded, though not quite as obtrusively. The "Enveloper" envelope printing function now can handle embedded graphics in the logo, but otherwise is just as good as before [except, of course, that WFW 6.0 has its own envelope tool, which you can install to the toolbar]. The "File New" function of WOPR 2.0 has been replaced by a file management system which is a major benefit of the new version: it enables a variety of sophisticated file controls from within WFW 6.0, including detailed file descriptions, page one display of a document, and directory/document management functions which may be all people with specific requirements may need. This functionality is almost transparently easy to use, to boot. On the other hand, the ToolBar Editor of 2.0 is rendered less necessary in WFW 6.0, which allows itself extensive toolbar modification in its own right and, moreover, the WOPR version is prone to bugs -- on attempt to change the colour of my spell check button to mustard instead turned the white portions of all my buttons an electric blue!
There are three major additional tools included with 6.0, two representing integration with other manufacturers' products. TSS Address Book Lite puts an address book into WFW 6.0; WinBreak Lite will remind you in a commanding, imperious voice (which gets pretty old pretty quick) to take a break from computing every 15 minutes or so [the time can be varied at user command]; and Insert Clipart is a better way of handing graphics for insert.
The minor functions provided with the program have changed slightly to reflect the new capabilities of WFW 6.0, as the program's documentation makes clear: "The Stellar Speller checks your spelling with a single click of the right mouse button. View Characters tells you what codes lie behind your inscrutable characters. ViewHeader, believe it or not, brings back the WinWord 2 functionality. Duplicate Style lets you make an exact copy of an existing style...something WinWord 6 left out. Edit-replace allows you to kick off the process with the currently selected text. FastFind finds the current selection quickly; just highlight and press the quick-keys. FileDelete closes and deletes the current document...without any hassles. Fix LineBreaks removes the extra line breaks of imported ASCII Text files. Normal Quotes converts the "smart quotes" back into normal quotes. WOPRStyle gives you a convenient dialog window of your Styles that's always there where you need it. ZipDial finds Zip codes using your modem."
The package installs cleanly, if somewhat slowly; it is supported by such extensive on-line help that there is no paper manual, and the tools are still well-integrated with WORD FOR WINDOWS. On the other hand, the extra features are matched by extra complexity, and the WOPR "File Save As" function crashes under NT 3.5.
The FILEWARE package from Total Systems Solutions is still available for WFW 6.0, but I have not tested it, because all its functions that I need, except for "run" buttons for external programs, are duplicated in WOPR 6.0's File New function. According to the TSS catalogue, the upgraded product offers power bordering on the awesome [the location of the last 1,250 files you used in WORD, for example], but it's not something I needed to investigate at this point.
DOCUPOWER (Total Systems Solutions U$50): On the other hand, this shows an opposite trend -- a more powerful and more easily-used add-in which actually costs less than its predecessor. What this does is identical to its 2.0 version -- it organizes your word-processing files into named categories and allows you to attach a description to each file in the category. The previous product came in a variety of flavours of more or less limited power, but the new version is the one and only, with an unlimited number of folders. The integration with WFW 6.0 is remarkably deft, and the product always gives you the choice of using it or not. The only drawbacks are the fact that there was no way to convert my extensive database from the 2.0 version, and the fact that the product causes a catastrophic crash [forcing a system restart] in WINDOWS 95. Otherwise my strong recommendation for this product has only intensified with this new version.
TEXT JUMPER (Total Systems Solutions): This was a casualty of the changeover to WORD 6.0 -- TSS has not introduced a new version of the product, and I rather expect it won't do so. This is partly due to the fact that hypertext has been replaced as a selling point by HTML; since Microsoft has produced WORD ASSISTANT for WFW 6.0 and is giving it away for free, and this product can create hypertext links for the WWW [it can in fact browse the Web independently] it is entirely possible that TSS sees no market for a revised version. While I have not tried it, I expect the 2.0 version of TEXT JUMPER won't work in WFW 6.0, because there have been major changes in the macro language from 2.0, and these products are entirely dependent on macros.
There is, however, a general word of warning for all those who customize WORD FOR WINDOWS using products like these: make sure that you back up your WFW files, including all necessary .INI and .DOT files, before and after you install them successfully. These programs modify NORMAL.DOT as well as many other things, and if you mangle something, the total reinstall can take more than an hour. Trust me on this -- I've done it more than once -- so now I roll off a copy of the entire WINWORD directory before undertaking any modifications like this.
And now for something completely different....so different in fact that if you are not using a graphical browser on the WorldWideWeb, you can part company with this column until next time.
WEBODEX (Novaweb Incorporated: $CAD20.00): If you use the WorldWideWeb at all extensively, the URLs sure pile up. Pretty soon your bookmark file in your browser is so full that you are having to pull up a secondary screen and you never can find anything and the arrghh! factor starts to exponentiate. True, NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR has a means of ordering URLs under submenus, but it's not transparent, and you can't comment in a way that you can use immediately. Enter WEBODEX, which presents the on-screen appearance of a pocket organizer complete with 3-D buttons. On the left side of the organizer are 3 sets of buttons: the top set allows you to grab the URL on which your browser is focussed [including any name text associated with that URL], and start your WINSOCK and browser, if you enable those options. The middle row of buttons includes 6 category buttons which can be shifted to create more sets of major categories, plus an applications button which can invoke other programs. The bottom button row includes 12 buttons forming the subcategory of the selected major category button; again these can be shifted to produce multiple sets. All of these categories and subcategories are user programmable with a right button click, although the default setup is logical and useful. So, for example, the category "Entertainment" could have the subcategory "Sports"; alternatively, you could set up a category "Sports" with subcategories "CFL Football", "NFL Football", and so on [there's no other sport than football, is there?].
When you click on a subcategory, a window forming the right-had of the organizer display shows you the equivalent of a tabbed-edge address book display, with the lowest alphabetical item as the display default. This gives you the title of the URL, the URL itself, plus the capacity to make a comment of up to 100 words. The beauty of this is that the URL displayed is live if your browser is running -- simply click on it and the browser will take you there. To capture a URL, you simply have it active in your browser window, and click a button. A dialogue box pops up which allows you to determine the category and subcategory for this URL, plus whatever comment you wish can be added then, or later; existing comments can also be edited. All of this is in a package which is so easy to install and use that no manual is needed. It runs flawlessly under NT 3.5 with the only minor flaw that the "polished black plastic" display turns an odd colour of green when the organizer does not have the focus. Of course, valuable though it may be, this package could be improved -- searchable notes and some means of highlighting the fact that there are multiple entries under a given letter are two things I would like to see.
Supplied with 100 choice Web sites pre loaded, requiring something like 1MB of disk space depending on your drive's granularity, and a snap to install and use (no paper manual is supplied nor needed), WEBODEX will rapidly become an essential accessory for the dedicated Webaholic. And it's a local product: a 7-day time limited test version can be downloaded from
http://novaweb.com/webodex/web0002.html
which is located in Dartmouth. The download package is a self-extracting executable about 300Kb in size, so the time involved is not inordinate. This is one of these rare products which is easier to use than to describe.
Next time, I expect to look at the good, the bad, and the ugly from a PsL CD-ROM, showing how little makes it from the CD-ROM to actual long term use. There's more shareware every month, and you can go a little crazy just keeping track of it all.
In spite of the almost universal use of Windows 3.x these days, and the recent arrival of Windows 95, there is still a lot of DOS about. Quite a few people still take DOS courses, and judging by the questions I sometimes get from DOS users, quite a few more people should be taking DOS courses.
One of the first questions I reply with when I am presented with a poser about DOS is to ask "What version are you using?" Most people don't know!
There are two simple ways to determine the DOS version in use. The easiest is to use the DOS VER command at the DOS prompt. If you are in Windows, select the MS DOS Icon from the Main Group, enter VER, read the resulting message, and enter EXIT to return to Windows. The second method is to make the DOS directory current. (If you are at the C:\> prompt, enter CD\DOS.) When the prompt looks like C:\DOS> ask for a directory with the DIR command. The time shown for DOS programs and all its utilities will look like 5:00a or 6.22a. This doesn't mean that all these programs were magically born at 5:00 or at 6.22 o'clock in the morning. It is another way of showing the DOS version.
You may need to resort to the second method if you ever get the message "Wrong DOS version". This will occur if you boot your computer with one version of DOS, and then try to run a DOS utility from another version. This happens to me sometimes when I am trying to get an ailing computer going. I may wish to edit the AUTOEXEC.BAT file for example, and the version in the machine does not have the DOS Editor, so I try to use the Editor from my own disk. Believe me! The Editor from DOS 6.2 does not like DOS 3.3.
What may be worse is that someone, in trying to be helpful, has copied some DOS utilities onto another machine. If the versions are different, there will be nothing but trouble until the rogue utilities are removed. The VER command will tell you what version of DOS was used to boot the machine. The DIR command will tell you which utilities are going to cause problems.
Newsletter Articles We are almost always in need of good articles. If anyone has something that they feel would make a good article, an interesting story to tell, or even a good meeting topic, please don't hesitate to pass it on.
Articles can be submitted in almost any format, ASCII text, AMI Pro, MS Word, Windows Write, WordStar and of course WordPerfect. How does one get an article to me? Various ways are available. You can bring it to a meeting or give me a call and upload it to me. If you are on the Chebucto FreeNet, Internet, or any type of e-mail system that has a gateway to the Internet, you can send something to me via the internet to where I work - hlfxtrad.educ.stuartce@gov.ns.ca
It does work, but if you are sending a file attachment to your message, it should be UUencoded and not a mime attachment.
Newsletter Production Notes For those who may be interested, the newsletter was formatted this month with WordPerfect for Windows 6.1 running on either a 386SX-25 or a Pentium 75. Each has 8mb of RAM but the Pentium has a PCI video card (much faster).
Much of the clipart used is from Novell (formerly WordPerfect) Presentations 3.0 which comes as part of the Perfect Office Suite. The only problem is that there isn't a printed list of the images so you have to root' around a bit.
The original was printed at 600 dots per inch resolution on a HP Laserjet 4M. The main body of the newsletter is set in 10 point Palatino with the article headings being 14 point bold. The title on the first page is ITC Zapf Chancery Medium Italic 19.2 and 16 points.
There were about 75 copies produced this month of which around 70 were mailed out. Any extra copies from the previous few month's issues that I have will be brought to the next meeting for those who are new to the group or may not be in regular attendance.
I do have a complete set of all the previous newsletters and if someone wanted to look through these, let me know and I can bring them to the next meeting.
