------------------------------------------------------------------------ REVIEWS OF THE WEEK | Interesting software/hardware you may need . . . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Product: Jana95 Contact for Windows95 | Reviewed By: Doug Reed (dreed@panda.uchc.edu) | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Janna Contact 95 is a 'documentcentric' program designed to allow you to manage business contacts. Made by the upstart Canadian company Janna Systems, this is one of the first products on the market designed to take full advantage of all of Windows 95 new features. Janna Contact is a 32-bit program certified by Microsoft as fully Windows 95 and Microsoft Office compatible, fully supporting OLE 2.0, long file names, Explorer-type lists, right mouse button support, tabbed dialogs, and enhanced property sheets. Janna Contact is also designed for use over a network, fully integrating with Microsoft's Schedule+. In short, Janna Contact attempts to do it all when it comes to contact management. Installation of Janna Contact 95 from the CD is very easy; autoplay is supported, allowing the user to simply click on the setup button when the CD window pops up. Included with the software are two different tutorials, one designed for the absolute beginner and the other for more advanced users who may have used a contact program before. These tutorials are short, well done, and to the point. If I had one gripe about the tutorials, it is the rolling of the credits when you finish them; there is no way to skip this portion of the program. Accompanying the tutorials is a well done manual, which does a good job of laying out what the user can do with Janna Contact and how it can be personalized to the particular user. When launching Janna Contact 95, you immediately become aware that this truly is a 32-bit program. Because I use a 486DX250, loading and running Janna Contact was a little slow although I don't have any comparable contact management programs to judge it by. Janna Contact, however, does work very well with other applications running at the same time and appears to make good use of threads. The interface is clean and is very much smart button-oriented. It also comes with a fairly extensive help system that can show you how to do something quickly and easily. So it is easy to learn and runs okay, but what does it do? Janna is a very comprehensive contact manager. Not only does it keep track of contact's addresses and phone numbers, but it allows you to associate documents and objects with specific contacts. Objects that can be associated with contacts range from graphics files to audio files to full motion video! Contact information can be extensively customized to suit your needs. Personalized letters or memos are easily generated and can be either printed or faxed. I would think that the ability to tell Janna Contact to create a personalized letter which it would then, all by itself, take care of distribution of that letter, would be a huge plus for business users. Janna can also integrate your e-mail, providing an easy way to send and receive e-mail that can be easily associated with different contacts. Through Janna's support of OLE 2.0 and drag and drop, e-mailing documents and objects can be easily accomplished. In addition, Janna keeps track of your schedule. Presentation-wise, this is one of the nicest parts of Janna Contact. Your schedule can be shown daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly. On a network, Janna Contact synchronizes with Microsoft's Schedule+ and allows for workgroup scheduling of meetings and other important occasions. One of the coolest things about Janna Contact is the alarm system. Rather than simply having text or audio alarms, Janna Contact allows for full multimedia alarms. Now you actually have a use for those multimedia movie clips you have downloaded from the Internet! For the corporate business user who has a lot of clients or other types of contacts, I think that Janna Contact 95 is a must have. Even for small businesses, I would think that Janna Contact could help ease the time and contact management burdens. I work at a university performing research, and I can see that Janna Contact would be a valuable asset even in academia. Why? Because it allows you to establish and maintain contacts with faculty from across the country, making it easier to maintain several collaborations all at the same time. I give Janna Contact 95 the highest praise: a permanent place on my hard drive! Janna Systems, Inc. 3080 Yonge St., Suite 6060 Toronto, ON M4N 3N1 (800)268-6107 http://www.janna.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Product: Paperazzi by Activision | Reviewed By: Gerry Imhoff (imhoffgj@maritz.com) | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Before you get the wrong impression, I really like Activision s recent release, "Paparazzi! Tales of Tinseltown". It was certainly a case of "good things are worth waiting for". But since I have to give my editor a reason why I was 2 days late with this review: Through no fault of the installation program, I had quite a time getting Paparazzi! up and running. Partly my fault, partly the price we pay for being in a very fast-moving industry. From the "My Fault" department: I ignored the fact that the system requirements were Windows 3.1, Win95, or something they referred to as a "Macintosh" (I m kidding, please, no letters from you Mac aficionados). Since I was already late for dinner and my PC was booted to Windows NT Workstation, I figured I d give it a shot anyway. (For those of you not paying attention, NT is not listed as a supported environment). After a 5-10 minute installation that went fine, I tried to fire up the game. Crash city. It even corrupted an NT system file called CTL3DV2.DLL that toasted my MS Office toolbar to the point I had to reinstall it. But like I said, my fault. After booting to Win95, I repeated the installation. Again, no apparent problems, although I do have one nit: After installing the program from the CD, you have to go into the QTW directory and execute Quick Time for Windows setup program as well. It would have been nice if the Paparazzi! setup triggered the QTW setup as well. Anyway, Paparazzi! and the latest version of QTW are now installed. Again, I fire up the game. Everything looks cool for the moment. Paparazzi! uses the on-screen metaphor of a hand-held "Palminator" as your window into the game. The Palminator is a multi-function device that allows you to watch TV, check your video messages, move around the city, and more. I select Channel 1 on the TV and wait in anticipation. And wait. And wait. Nothing. So I ask to see my messages and again wait in anticipation. And wait. And (you get the idea). This is getting personal. I REALLY want to play this game. After about a half hour of getting nowhere, I picked up the manual (I HATE it when that happens!) to check for troubleshooting tips. Imagine that. Page 6. "Problem: My QuickTime movies just show a line or are not appearing. Solution: You might not have the latest driver for your video card...". Not accepting defeat and now being VERY late for dinner, I head home. Leftover lasagna and 2 kids and a wife missing daddy. Played with the kids, read the bedtime stories, wife settled into watching the tube. Snuck downstairs to the home PC. Installed Paparazzi! for the 3rd time (Win95 again) and viola! Now for the good stuff. Paparazzi! is different than anything you've played before. You interact with the video on screen while it s playing. There are over two hours of live footage in the game, and a cast of over 60 actors and actresses. You select one of six personas to guide you through your 14-day journey through Tinseltown. Your goal is to capture 24 celeb s photos and complete the game without going broke or getting booted out of town. The personas range from total sleezebags to folks of fairly high integrity, which is key, as your admittance to various establishments and your payoff for various photos often depends on your persona. To locate your subjects, Paparazzi! must search through clues found on TV, messages left on your Palminator, publications like The Entertainer (weekly) and Teen Heat, and more clues throughout town. To make it more interesting, clues are accessible only at specific times on certain days. Quite a challenge. Your travels take you to Cheevers Cameras; Grand Habernet Hotel, the preferred abode of the stars; Tinseltown Municipal Court (where you re sure to catch some excited celebrities!); and various clubs, bars, parks, stores, and similar locales. Your subjects include such luminaries as tennis player Andre McConnor, Rusk Limburger, pop singer The Virgin Mary, former first lady Jackie Rae Gunn, TV talk show host Okra Salad Raffle, and other obvious and not-so-obvious take-offs of our favorite media icons. Your observation skills are of paramount importance; make sure you have enough cash to hang out at the hot spots (or "negotiate" your way in); don t hesitate to buy some folks a drink if you need a tip (but watch out for bum advice from the competition); conserve your film; and watch out for those celebrity lookalikes. And of course, be prepared the swingin swill who prefer their picture NOT be taken. All in all, a very enjoyable and engrossing game. Kind of your "King s Quest" or "Leisure Suit Larry" series on major steroids. Fun and recommended. Paparazzi! was developed by independent software creator Museworthy, Inc., and acquired/licensed by Activision. Museworthy has more stuff under development, also to be marketed by Activision. Activision 11601 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 1000 Los Angeles, CA 90025 310-473-9200, fax 310-479-4005 http://www.activision.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- Product: Activision Adventure Collection CD | Reviewed By: Mike Gallo (gallo-michael@hq.secnav.navy.mil) | --------------------------------------------------------------------- Ever wonder what it was like to play adventure games before the era of 200 MIP processors, gigabyte hard drives, 3D sound, and super VGA graphics? Then, look no further than the Infocom's collection of interactive adventure games by Activision. The Adventure Collection features seven classic interactive games: Border Zone, Cutthroats, Infidel, Plundered Hearts, Trinity, Planetfall, and Zork III. All seven games are 100 percent text based interactive games. Unlike the mouse based point and click interfaces of today's games, these require semi-complete sentences as input. There are no sounds or graphics! The computer tells you what you see and you fill in the rest with your imagination(not unlike reading a good fiction novel.) Infocom includes a book with all the original game materials along with some maps and other extras. Game play is the similar in all of the games. A brief description each game's plot follows. Border Zone - This is a three chapter game in which you play one of three different characters (an American businessman, a Western Spy, and then an Eastern spy) depending on which chapter you are in. (You don't have to go through them in order.) Time does not stand still in Border Zone so beware. Slow fingers could do you in! Cutthroats - You are a diver trying to salvage sunken treasure from one of four shipwrecks. Although there are four ships, only one treasure will be found in any one game. Infidel - You are an explorer who as just been abandoned by your men. You awaken to find yourself alone in the desert search for a ancient Egyptian pyramid. Plundered Hearts - This game casts the player in the role of an Englishwoman! The game start on a ship that is attacked by pirates. Just before a ruffian decides to tarnish your reputation a dashing young captain comes to your rescue with news from your father. Your objective is to find your way back to your father and maybe find some romance as well. Trinity - This game has what I thought was one of the more interesting story lines. As you're enjoying your vacation in London, WW III breaks out and the ensuing nuclear holocaust send London up in a puff of smoke. You end up in a strange world where strange things may happen. The object of the game it to make it back to New Mexico to the site of the first atomic bomb test which was code named--TRINITY. The materials included an impressive bibliography to enable the player to learn more about the development of the world's first atom bomb(the Manhattan project) and the infamous Trinity test. Zork III - The Dungeon Master. Dungeons, treasures, traps, monsters, magic, you get the idea. Planetfall - Continuing a long family tradition you serve in the Stellar Patrol roaming the galaxy, hoping to do more than mop the floor. Computer resource requirements are minimal(no problem for 286 or 386 machines). The CD includes a Windows based install program, which will install the files and create a program manager group for you. Windows is not required to run these games and you do not actually need Windows to install the games. The files can be copied straight to your hard drive in DOS. Less than 1.2 megabytes of disk space are required to install all seven games to the hard drive. If you're really stingy for space, you can just run the games straight off the CD. If you're a collector of classic PC games or you like using your imagination instead of relying on 3D rendered graphics, then I suggest you give the Adventure Collection CD a try. Activision P.O. Box 67713 Los Angeles, CA 90067 (310) 479-5644 CompuServe: GO ACTIVISION URL: http://www.activision.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Product: Sidekick95 | Reviewed By: Dennis MacPhereson (pctc@infi.net) | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sidekick95 is one of the first personal information managers (PIM) for the new Windows95 and it is slick. It has everything a good PIM should have plus it's fast, easy to use, and costs around forty bucks. It has all the usual PIM-type features: calendars (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly); cardfiles (as many as you want); expense reports (pre formatted and automated); a phone dialer; appointment book; to-do list, and reminders; plus a contact manager, word processor (with fonts, search/replace, spell checking, merging, and more), a world clock, and total customization. Everything in Sidekick runs like lightning. The six main views, Calendar, Earth Time, CardFile, Write, Expense, and Reminder, are accessed by clicking on the appropriate icon. I use the Calendar view as my "home view" because it shows four of the most useful screens all in one window. In the upper left quadrant of the Calendar view, today's date is highlighted on a calendar of the month. You can view any other day, month, or year with a click of the mouse. Below this small calendar is the To-Do list; below the To-Do list is an area where you list the calls you need to make (by dragging the person's name from the cardfile). To the right of the calendar, to-do list, and calls list is the appointments list. It is the largest area and shows the time of day on the left side in 30-minute increments. If you've got to be somewhere at 1:00pm, the appointment is clearly displayed in the font and color of your choice. Pressing the right mouse button over any list or appointment brings up a menu with all the necessary options at that point. Selecting the Earth Time icon displays a map of the world and the current time in eight separate locations: Hong Kong, Tokyo, Sydney, San Francisco, London, Paris, Chicago, and the city nearest you. Handy feature if you're an international traveler. Click on the CardFile icon and the screen is filled with your address book, CD collection, list of great wines, or what ever cardfile you wish to show. All lists are easily searchable and can be sorted any way you choose. The Write icon takes you to Sidekick's word processor. Once there you can create and edit Write files, folders, and documents; use Write templates provided with Sidekick 95; send email or faxes using Microsoft Exchange (Windows95's post office); and do quick mail merges on letters or labels using information from your cardfile of names and addresses. The Expense view opens up a handy expense form you can fill out on the spot. Anything entered on this form is saved in an expense file for creating detailed expense reports later. The Reminder icon takes you to a full-screen view of all the things you're supposed to remember to do. It shows the date, the activity (meeting, phone call, trip, etc.), a description of the activity, and full details. It's a clever summary of your responsibilities for the day, week, or month. All information can be easily dragged and dropped or cut and pasted between and among all six views. Operation is intuitive enough for the new user to be quickly up and running right after installation. For example, I was zipping through the program in no time because of Sidekick's excellent import feature. I simply went to my old PIM, saved my list of clients as a comma-delimited text file (.csv), and imported it directly into Sidekick. Faster than you can say Starfish Software (the makers of Sidekick95), I had my contacts in a Sidekick95 cardfile ready to use. It also imports .dbf, .db, .txt, and .crd files (Windows 3.1's cardfile format). In summary, if you've got Windows95 and you're still using that awkward old Windows3.1 PIM, get Starfish Software's Sidekick95 you'll love the way it works. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ REVIEWS OF THE WEEK | Interesting software/hardware you may need . . . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Product: Norton Navigator for Windows95 | Reviewed By: Doug Reed (dreed@panda.uchc.edu) | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Norton Navigator is an essential utility for all of those wanting to get the most out of Windows 95. Norton has released a real gem of a program, which includes it's own file manager, multiple enhancements to the Taskbar, long file name support for Windows 3.1 applications, and SmartFolders, a new and dynamic way of creating and maintaining links to related files. Navigator installs easily and configures itself to your system; you cannot choose what applications you want to install on your hard disk but you can choose which ones are active and how they are configured. However, I think you will find that all of them are useful. I found Navigator to be truly useful and indispensible utility. Navigator is centered around the Norton File Manager. Separate from Explorer, Microsofts file management program for Windows 95, this maintains a more 'classic' appearance similar to what most Windows 3.1 users are familiar with. It also contains SmartTabs, which enable you to configure the display of your files and folders. Opening multiple folders and displaying them side by side is as simple as it was with the PC Tools for Windows 3.1 File Manager (not surprising, considering that Central Point and Norton are both owned by Symantec). One very interesting new ability is the ability to add FTP sites to the folder lists. Once set up, accessing a remote FTP site is as easy as opening a folder. Norton File Manager also allows for easy compression or expansion of files in either PKZip 2.04, SEA ARC, or LHA 2.1x formats. Renaming a compressed file with the extension .EXE automatically converts the file into a self-extracting program. Files can be encrypted for protection or decrypted if protection is no longer necessary. Files that are to be sent over the Internet can be uuencoded (or decoded once received). Very handy for posting those .WAV files to a USENET server! In addition to accessing those features in the Norton File Manager, most of these features are added to the right mouse button.20 Navigator also adds a number of enhancements to the Taskbar. If you like to create separate desktops for separate projects, you can create them with Navigator and find that accessing the different desktops is as simple as clicking on them in the taskbar. Navigator also adds QuickLaunch buttons to the Taskbar. One mouse click and your most commonly used programs are up and running. I use this feature for some of my favorite games, so that I can quickly boot up and play something while I'm printing a long file. Quicklaunch buttons are automatically provided for Norton File Manager and for the Norton Navigator Control Center (where you can configure Navigator). QuickMenus are added to the Start button, allowing you to easily see lists of recently run commands, recently opened documents (which can be grouped by type), and Control Panel applets. In addition, Navigator adds a feature called SmartFolders. SmartFolders enables you to save all of your files associated with a particular application in one place, while creating dynamic links so that files that are part of one project can be easily found and opened. For example, a SmartFolder for a grant proposal might contain word processing documents and graphics documents, which are found not only together in the SmartFolder but also separately in their application folders. Navigator also includes a number of other useful features. As mentioned above, it adds long file name support for Windows 3.1 applications so that you can enjoy one of the advantages of Windows 95 without having to upgrade to Windows 95 applications. Navigator also includes a number of useful search tools, in particular allowing you to set up indexes for faster searches of text strings. The Norton File Archive Wizard identifies files and programs that haven't been used in awhile, allowing you to either back them up or delete them altogether, saving on precious hard drive space. The bottom line is that if you have upgraded to Windows 95 then you need Norton Navigator. Not that Windows 95 isn't a vastly improved OS over Windows 3.1! But Navigator takes it to another level, making it by far the most user-friendly and flexible of the operating systems out there. Listen up, Apple: I think the combination of Windows 95 and Navigator could be lethal! Symantec 10201 Torre Avenue Cupertino, CA 95014 (800) 441-7234 http://www.symantec.com PG, St. Louis, MO -- patrick@supportu.com On 12/17/95 at PM -- http://www.crl.com/~supportu/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ REVIEWS OF THE WEEK | Interesting software/hardware you may need . . . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Running Linux" Book review Reviewed by Danny Williams I found out I needed a computer running Unix on my LAN if I ever wanted to provide decent electronic mail or other Internet services for the company. I thought it would never happen - I thought Unix was just too expensive, required big expensive computers, and would be impossible for me to learn without a long series of college classes. Boy, was I wrong. There is a version of Unix called Linux that is affordable (free!) and will run on even that old 386 that I retired to a dusty closet last year. I also found I could learn the basics very affordably through an excellent book titled "Running Linux." Linux will run on a 386SX with 2Mb of memory, although processors up to and including the Pentium are supported. Bring the RAM up to 4Mb and you can run Linux with a Graphical User Interface (GUI) like Windows or a Macintosh. A typical installation will take 40Mb of disk. Of course, the more memory and disk you have, the easier your life will be, but that hold true with just about any operating system. So if you have that much machine or better, you have the hardware it takes to give it a try. Learning how can be a little trickier - you can spend hours combing through FAQ's (Frequently Asked Question files) and newsgroups to hopefully find some of what you want or you can pick it up in this one clearly written, well indexed volume. For a beginner or re-beginner like me, "Running Linux" by Matt Welsh and Lar Kaufman is an excellent starting point. This 575 page book had enough basic information that those who have only heard of Linux and want to try it our can get started - it even tells you where and how to get all the parts you need free from the Internet. It's also loaded with enough t tips and suggestions that a seasoned Unix "jock" will also pick up plenty of useful information. As a testament to its usefulness, "Running Linux" has only been in my hands about a week and it is already dog-eared and filled with bookmarks pointing to important stuff. I've also filled a loose-leaf binder with pages downloaded from various sources referenced in the book . One of the strongest points of "Running Linux" is that it does not try to tell you EVERYTHING. If it did it would be as big as an encyclopedia and you would never be able to find anything. Many topics are described briefly or with enough info to get you started on a simple configuration then tell you where to look for more detailed information. This keeps the size manageable and the organization clear. The opening chapters describe a brief history of Linux , a comparison of Linux to other operating systems, exactly what hardware you need to run Linux, other sources of Linux information, and where to get and how to install your copy of Linux. The install chapter is where you start getting your hands dirty. Follow the sections and you will be lead by the hand through the whole procedure from repartitioning your hard disk (or not!) to finally booting it up and logging in for the first time. For someone not familiar with Unix and its variants, this can be a scary process using only the online documentation. "Running Linux" makes it painless, however, and provides a lot of background that provides peace of mind. Once installed and logged in, what do you do? This is where "Running Linux" really shines. Before I had "Running Linux, "I pulled one of my old Unix manuals out of the attic, blew off the dust, and got very confused. The manual assumed I already knew a good deal of the simple functions of Unix, like how to edit a or assign rights to a file. "Running Linux" has three very important chapters that do a good introduction to Unix system operation and administration - Basic Unix Commands and Concepts will get you logged in, entering basic commands at the command line, and looking up on-line help. Essential Systems Management move the bar up a notch to creating accounts and managing passwords, archiving and compressing files (like DOS users might do with ZIP or ARJ), making backups, building and compiling your own Kernel, and recovering from disasters. The Power Tools chapter is an excellent intro/review of Unix editors. You can use some of these to format nice documents with fonts and columns and various typestyles, but I was happy to finally be shown a way to edit all those configuration n files that seem to need tweaking. One of the most common Unix text editors is the small, efficient `vi' - the visual editor. Although the commands are quite different from the WordStar and MSWord I've been using the last few years, they are very efficient once learned and the tutorial in "Running Linux" did a far better job than the fat textbooks I had referenced before. There are similar tutorials on Emacs (a bit fancier than vi, with pseudo windows and colors and t hings) and using Tex and Latex ( text processing that can produce book layouts and mathematical formulae ready for printing). All that is in roughly the first half of the book, and gives you enough to get started and actually get some useful (and pretty cool) stuff done. The rest of the book gets a bit more technical and complex, but still is easy to follow provided you have some background. The chapter on Programming for Linux is not a substitute for a few programming classes, but can help you use your any previous general programming experience to write programs for Linux. You will need to know well all your lessons on editors from the previous chapter. Once you have your computer running fine by itself, Networking and Communications will tell you how to connect to the rest of the world. There are excellent introductions to all the hot topics like the Web, FTP, and mail. "Running Linux" makes it possible for even someone with as little background as me to network a Linux box to a LAN, use it as a gateway to the Internet, and set up a Web Server. It is certainly well written enough t that I am encouraged to try with a good chance of success! Now, if you will excuse me, I have a Kernel to compile, an ethernet board to install, a Web page to design, and still some more reading to do... "Running Linux" by Matt Welsh and Lar Kaufman Published by O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. 103 Morris Street, Suite A Sebastopol, CA 95472 ISBN: 1-56592-100-3 Norton Utilities for Windows95 Reviewed by Doug Reed Norton Utilities is the third of Symantec's new suite of Windows '95 applications. The first two, Norton AntiVirus and Norton Navigator, were covered in previous reviews. Norton Utilities completes the set, giving the user a complete set of tools for maximizing performance and protection against disaster. To begin with, Norton Utilities comes with a program called Tuneup. Tuneup is used prior to the installation of Windows '95 and its goal is to prepare your computer for the transition. Once Windows 95 is installed, then Norton Utilities can be installed. The most noticeable feature of Norton Utilities is the System Doctor. System Doctor runs as a toolbar on your Windows background, constantly monitoring your system to warn you of problems. The conditions which prompt an alarm can be left at default or altered to suit your needs. You can also alter the System Doctor displays to show information about your system that you consider important. When a problem is detected, System Doctor can either repair the problem itself or ask you what course of action you would prefer. The other most visible portion of Norton Utilities is the Norton Protected Recycle Bin. This application adds an additional layer of protection geared towards recovery of mistakenly deleted files. In Windows '95, files that were overwritten, deleted from within a Windows application, or deleted from within a DOS box are not added to Recycle Bin but are simply deleted. With Norton Utilities, these files get sent to the Recycle Bin. The ability to recover overwritten files is an especially nice feature. When prompted, it can call up the Norton Unerase Wizard, which will assist in recovery of deleted files. Norton Utilities also comes with the Disk Doctor, which can examine your hard drive, determine whether there are any problems, and repair them. Another nice application that helps with hard drive problems is Image. Image stores a 'snapshot' of your drive's critical information, which can then be used should you encounter any problems attempting to use your computer. Norton Utilities also includes the ability to generate a Rescue disk, which enables Norton Utilities to diagnose and repair problems with your system that are preventing it from loading and running properly. Norton Utilities also comes with additional applications that are useful. SpaceWizard does exactly as its name implies, it finds space. SpaceWizard searches your hard drive, looking for old or seldom used files that can be either compressed, moved, or deleted. SpeedDisk is basically a defragmentation program, rearranging files so that they take up contiguous clusters (and thus less space). SpeedDisk also works to place frequently used files first on the disk, providing faster access to these files. Ever wonder how your system compares with others? Well, the System Information application of Norton Utilities will tell you. In addition to providing basic information about your computer such as the CPU, memory, drives, etc..., System Information will perform a benchmark test and compare it with standardized systems. As mentioned above, Norton Utilities completes the trilogy of Norton applications by Symantec for Windows '95. As with Norton Antivirus and Norton Navigator, Norton Utilities is pretty much a must-have. Why? Because protection against hard drive failure is very important. Sure, you can use the backup program that comes with Windows '95 to save critical data, but what are you going to do to get the system running again so you can restore those files? Norton Utilities is a good program suited for that very purpose with a solid reputation behind it. The only negative I can think of for any of these three programs is that with all three running it does tend to bog the system down a bit if you only have 8 megs of physical RAM. That's okay in my book; I'll gladly take a slight speed hit in order to insure that I'll still be up and running tomorrow. Symantec Corporation 10201 Torre Avenue Cupertino, CA 95014 (800) 441-7234 http://www.symantec.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ REVIEWS OF THE WEEK | Interesting software/hardware you may need . . . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Product: NetViz 2.0 | Reviewed By: Danny Williams (danny@ctrust.com)| -------------------------------------------------- Ten years ago, your company might have had two IBM PC's sitting one one desk in the same office. It was trivially easy to know all there was to know about your computer and communications resources. Now you might find yourself keeping track of 1,000 computers, routers, hubs, and LAN and WAN links spread across 10 domestic cities and another three abroad. You certainly can't keep track of it in your head any more, and even the gigantic, taped-up, scribbled-on paper chart on the wall has become cumbersome to maintain. If any of this sounds familiar, you need NetViz. At first blush, NetViz looks like another template based drawing program like Corel Chart or Vizio. NetViz goes much deeper, however. Like its little cousins, NetViz provides customizable collections of equipment symbols on a "Node Pallets." To put a router in your drawing, for example, just drag the router picture from the Pallet and drop it where you want it. Lots of links are available, like 10BaseT, T1, or Serial, to connect your equipment together. With just this, it is quick and easy to draw an accurate diagram of a single LAN. Diagrams are nice, but need some data behind them to really make them useful. Each item dropped on the diagram can have attached to it an "attribute table" that lists such things as the name of who's using the computer, in which room the computer is located, what software is loaded and licensed on it, what expansion cards are installed, how much RAM and how much disk. Although NetViz won't reach out across the network and do the inventory for you, it will dump and load this data externally via ASCII files. This is all fine for one LAN, but what about the Cairo office? What about Rome? Heck, what about the building just across the street? Of course such a diverse drawing would become unmanagable complex very quickly. The solution in NetViz is creating separate drawings for each local network, then linking them together into a hierarchal master drawing. This way, you can diagram your LAN in one drawing, diagram the LAN for the office across the street in another drawing, then connect them showing the wireless microwave link you used to bridge the gap. The links between the drawings mimics the actual links between the networks. This holds true even as the scale gets bigger. An international organization would end up with a map of the world and red circles on each office. Links between the remote locations show whether it is a T1/E1, satellite, or whatever. Click on an office to zoom into that office, looking at the floor plan and a graphical depiction of where every piece of equipment is located. Click a computer, and see the manifest of what that computer contains. NetViz comes on CD-ROM to make the installation easy if you have a CD-ROM drive, and on six 3.5" diskettes to make it possible otherwise. There is no option to run from the CD, but during the instal l you can select parts not to install - notably the maps and graphics filters. Of the 57Mb default CD installation, 39Mb are maps of countries, states and counties. Installing from the floppies offers only a subset of the maps. The maps carry a high cost in disk space, perhaps, but are quite valuable in presenting a clear picture of the organization of far-flung networks, and you can select grow ups of maps (counties only, for instance) if your networks won't soon be going national or international. Likewise, if you don't anticipate using some of the dozens of graphics filters available, then omit them at installation and save some space. You can always go back later and install and stray ones you might need. NetViz requires Windows, so I tried NetViz on a 75 Mhz Pentium with 8Mb running Windows for Workgroups 3.11 and it ran great. The same machine with Windows 95 required a small patch downloaded from Quyen's BBS, but then ran as advertised. Under Windows95, however, the patch made it more difficult to go back and load different maps or filters from the install program. NetViz 2.0 Queyen Systems Inc. 1300 Piccard Drive, Suite 108 Rockville, MD 20850 U.S.A. (301) 258-5087 Phone (301) 258-5088 Fax ------------------------------------------------------------------ Product: Shanghai: Great Moments (Windows) | Reviewed By: Steve Lozowski (SLozowsk@sms-hdx.mhs.compuserve) | Reviewed on: 486 DX-33, 16 MB RAM, Double Speed CD-ROM | ------------------------------------------------------------------ Shanghai: Great Moments is a Windows CD-ROM that puts some new twists on a classic puzzle game. Shanghai is a game of matching tiles in an attempt to clear all of them from the board, based on Mah-Jongg. It is not just a matter of luck and seeing the matches, however. Some strategy is needed to determine which tiles to remove in what order, when you have more than one match to choose from. This can affect your chances at winning, as many tiles are often buried under those showing on the top of the pile. With Shanghai: Great Moments, the traditional game has been expanded to four unique games, with nine different tile sets to choose from. Along with each tile set comes multimedia features that liven up the game. Each tile set has different music, sound effects, cursors, and either video clips or animation that plays when tiles are matched. If you complete a game, there is a short windowed "reward" movie that plays, also related to the theme of the tile set. One of the multimedia features of the game is video clips of Rosalind Chao, star of the Joy Luck club. She introduces the game at the start, and bids you farewell when you quit. In between, there is a gray picture of her in the lower left corner of the screen as you play. Clicking on this makes her picture larger, surrounded by options for "Find a Match", "Lite Strategy", "Deep Strategy", and "What Do I Do Now...?". "Find a Match" is useful if your are totally stuck, but the computer will show you the first match it finds, not necessarily the best. "Lite Strategy" and "Deep Strategy" give you basic tips. There is advanced strategy clues in the Help option from the window menu, and in the Player's Guide. For puzzle fans, this game could be played many times without getting stale. The Classic Shanghai game has thirteen variations itself, some harder than others. Beijing allows you to match free tiles or slide a row of tiles to make a match. This game tracks high scores in the "Wall of Fame", and rewards more points for matches made by sliding tiles. The Great Wall has tiles that fall if they are not supported from below, and a magnetism option that draws falling tiles against those on lower levels. There are three set-up variations to The Great Wall. Action Shanghai complicates the game by adding new tiles as you play. This can be set from Easy, with new tiles every twelve seconds, to Hard, with new tiles appearing every six seconds. In addition to the combinations of these four games with the nine different tile sets, there is a two-player option for all the games except Action Shanghai. In these games, both players are using the same tiles. You can have the computer count the total time for alternating turns, with the lowest time at the end winning. Or you can have the computer set a limit for each turn, with the highest score from matched tiles winning. A tournament mode takes one or two players through twelve levels of different games. There is also a contemplation mode that can be set for Classic Shanghai, The Great Wall, and Action Shanghai. This operates like the game "Concentration", with all tiles upside down. You must use your memory to find matches. I really enjoyed this game. The biggest drawback is a delay when you change tile sets. It takes about two minutes to "decompress sprites." The first time this happened I was a little disappointed. I was changing to the Science Fiction tile set. But after the delay, I was very impressed. This was my favorite tile set. With eerie background music, you get small pictures of movie sci-fi scenes on each tile. When you make a match, short video clips from the movies play. I liked the videos from tile sets such as this one much better than the animation in other sets. When I played the Music tile set, I was initially disappointed at what I considered trite animations. But these could appeal to children, making Shanghai: Great Moments truly a family game. I found some of the tiles sets very hard to recognize. Inventions had so many picture of men with beards or mustaches, it was hard to pick them out from the small tiles. Other sets were easier on the eyes and mind. In summary, this is a great game for puzzle fans. And if you've never played a game like this before, but want a break from shoot-em-up and arcade-style actions games, you should consider Shanghai: Great Moments. Activision has also released a version of this for Windows 95, which was not reviewed. Activision P.O. Box 67713 Los Angeles, CA 90067 (310) 479-5644 CompuServe: GO ACTIVISION URL: http://www.activision.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Product: Activision Atari 2600 Action Pack 1 and 2 for Windows95| Reviewed By: Gerry Imhoff (imhoffgj@maritz.com) | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Whoa! Blast from the past. The only thing missing was the black and white TV with the broken antenna I used to play these on. Back in the days of the canary yellow leisure suit I wore to my 8th grade graduation. I ve often told my wife about how cool I looked in it, but she can't stop laughing long enough to hear any more of the story. You should have seen the shirt and the shoes... I digress. Back to the review. I have to believe most people who had a pulse in the early 80 s played at least one of these games. I remember teaching my mom, who was in her mid-60's at the time, to play Chopper Command. I expected her to give up after about 30 seconds, only to find that I had to wrestle the controller away from her after a half hour of surprisingly intense effort. Activision's early success certainly supports my theory that just about everyone had exposure to these classic Atari games. Two years after they were founded, Activision s sales jumped from $6 to $60 million. Not a bad year. Funny thing, I remember I used to think the Activision games were so much better than the Atari-label games because they had such awesome graphics. My, how things have changed. Myst, these are not. But I still had a blast playing these in 1995, given the fact that I first played them before I could drive. Activision s Atari 2600 Action Pack 1 and 2 for Windows 95 consists of the following classic games: Action Pack 1; Boxing, Chopper Command, Cosmic Commuter, Crackpots, Fishing Derby, Freeway, Frostbite, Grand Prix, H.E.R.O., Kaboom!, Pitfall!, River Raid, Seaquest, Sky Jinks, and Spider Fighter; Action Pack 2; Atlantis, Barnstorming, Dolphin, Dragster, Enduro, Ice Hockey, Keystone Kapers, Laser Blast, Megamania, Oink!, Plaque Attack, River Raid II, Skiing, Stampede, and Tennis. I'm not going to go into any detail on the games whatsoever, because each game is EXACTLY as you remember them. They are an exact port from the Atari 2600. Same choppy block graphics we thought were rocket science in 1982. Same "bong...boop" sounds our mom s used to yell at us to turn down while they were cooking dinner. I could almost smell the meatloaf I never told her I didn t really like. These games are a great mindless diversion that will remind you of simpler times. Before we had to worry about corporate downsizing, NetWare vs. NT Server, Firewalls, or saving for our kid's college education. Which brings up something that surprised me. My 4-year old often gets frustrated with some of the games I ve gotten for him, usually because of the need to do several things at once like watch a meter, run, jump, pick up health, and shoot. He LOVED this offering from Activision. Spacebar and arrow keys. What could be easier? And I thought it was tough to get my mom to quit playing 15 years ago. The Windows 95 Autoplay file launches the install procedure upon insertion of the CD. After a few seconds of activity, icons for each of the 15 games appear on the screen, in addition to a small number of utilities such as On-line registration, Help, Credits, Uninstall, and others. Uninstall removes the 1MB or so of game files that the Autoplay install put on your hard drive. Thank you very much. I need every ounce of that 1GB. Can you believe we actually complain about having "only" 1GB these days? Help...Game History reveals some interesting tidbits on the original game designers, including what they re doing now and what inspired them to create the original games. It provided entertaining reading and further examples of the changes we've seen in the last 15-plus years. Finally, from the "Never admit defeat and resort to looking in the manual" department, the only trouble I had was trying to exit the first game I played. When I tried to move my mouse pointer onto the game window so I could select File...Exit, the mouse pointer would disappear. Tried a bunch of things including trying to kill the game from the Task Manager. With each failed attempt, my ego built on 12 years of increasing "expertise" in this industry deflated further. Then my 4 year old strolled by, pressed the Esc key, and looked at me with one of those "Duh, dad, how dumb can you be?" looks. Dumb, maybe. But he'll never be as cool as I was in that canary yellow leisure suit. Activision P.O. Box 67713 Los Angeles, CA 90067 (310) 479-5644 CompuServe: GO ACTIVISION URL: http://www.activision.com/ þ