
The Issue at Hand    \|/    by Lauren Willoughby
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"Blab about Windows 95's debut this month, and more blab"

                           SOUND THE TRUMPETS!

   The much-heralded debut of Windows 95 is scheduled for August 24th. 
Thanks to Falsoft's beta-testing, I'm already running the final release 
version (Build 950r-6, if you wanna get technical). Pretty cool -- and 
compatible with my Windows 3.1 programs. The only thing I've found I 
can't run so far is Xplora 1: Peter Gabriel's Secret World (an artsy 
multimedia CD-ROM program with music videos). Older Windows 3.1 programs 
look sharp in Windows 95, and they even inherit some of the new 
interface features -- little improvements, things like more responsive 
mouse/menu action. When you click to pull down a menu and move your 
mouse down the list, the highlight moves with you. And if you move your 
mouse left or right to adjacent menu options, those menus pop down 
immediately, not requiring a second click.

   We've also received a beta of Microsoft Office 7.0. Since I've only 
had a few hours to play with it, I can't report much yet, but I like 
some of the new features in Word 7.0. There's a highlighter button up 
there next to the bold/italic/underline buttons -- yes, you can 
highlight words or whole paragraphs, just as you did with markers in 
college! The default "marker" is yellow, but you can choose other colors 
too. This is better than changing font colors, because you may just want 
to draw attention to words onscreen, not on the printout. I'm a color-
code freak, and I love it. Word 7.0 has gotten more intelligent about 
helping you correct spelling and grammar errors. The program's resident 
"English teacher," ever-vigilant, watches everything as you type it. If 
you type a word that's not in the dictionaries, it marks the word with a 
wavy red line. It catches instances of double capitals (changing "THe" 
automatically into "The") and also corrects common typos (like "teh") on 
the fly.


>>[ This Month's VISA Statement ]<<

   Not content to let the plastic cool off, I did it again: I found some 
great prices on computer stuff and did what comes naturally -- charged 
it! (If only my family would understand that I'm *saving* money here. 
<G>) I want to tell you about my bargains. Here's what I bought: the 
1280MB, 10ms Western Digital IDE hard drive (Model WDAC31200N); and a 
Creative Labs multimedia upgrade kit featuring a Sound Blaster 16, 
double-speed CD-ROM drive, and a bunch of cool graphics programs.

   I *really* needed the hard-disk space, because I've been FTP-ing 
software like crazy over the Internet, and it's been months since my 
poor 340MB hard drive had more than 10MB of free space. I got my new 
drive from Drive Outlet Center ("DOC") of Mundelein, Illinois. It cost 
$314 -- that was the absolute lowest price I could find on that drive at 
the time (mid-July). Fedex two-day shipping cost $16. I try to keep up 
with prices, and Drive Outlet Center consistently seems to have the 
best. (For quotes, call 800-610-1616, or fax 708-970-9003. Nope, they're 
not paying me, in case you're wondering.). I may have to call them again 
soon. I've developed a burning yearning for a VESA Enhanced IDE I/O 
board (with two 16550 serial ports, high-speed parallel ports, some 
caching -- oh, my!).

   I bought the multimedia upgrade kit in early May. In fact, I was 
shopping for Mother's Day presents at the mall when I spied the box 
displayed enticingly on a shelf at Babbage's. From across the way, and 
through a stand of potted trees, the price tag of $199 shone like a 
beacon. The rest is history. $199 is not a bad price for a Sound Blaster 
16 (heck, I paid $159 for just an 8-bit Pro board three years ago), a 
double-speed CD-ROM drive, and lite versions of graphics programs that 
list in the high triple-digits (Altamira Composer, Kai's Power Tools, 
PhotoStyler). Yeah, Babbage's is blowing out the double-speed kits to 
make way for the quad-speeds, but this is still a great bargain. (Though 
I had a hard time explaining it to my mother, who said, "You bought 
yourself $200 worth of computer thingeys, and all I got were two lousy 
cassette tapes?!" <G>)

   Ed Ellers, PCM's Technical Editor, nice guy that he is, offered to 
install my drive for me. (I've never FDISKed -- it's a phobia thing.) 
Little did he know about the sound card and the CD-ROM drive, but when I 
arrived with an armful of shopping bags, he resigned himself to the 
inevitable. Since Ed knows his way around jumpers and interrupts (while 
I trip over them), it was a piece of cake for him to get everything 
working fantastically. He even installed Windows 95 for me -- along with 
Warp! (Thanks, Ed!)


>>[ Operating System Shuffle ]<<

   More conservative computer users pulled me aside and yelled, "You're 
crazy! You wanna put Windows 95 and Warp on the *same drive?* You're 
asking for trouble!" But I've proved them wrong so far. Ha-ha! Take 
that! I have not just Windows 95 but OS/2 Warp running on my system from 
Drive C, thanks to V Communications' System Commander utility (and Ed, 
who did the installation for me when I got squeamish).

   When the computer boots I pick my operating system of choice from the 
menu, and System Commander takes care of whatever needs to be done with 
the master boot record, partition tables and configuration files. System 
Commander can boot up to 100 operating systems this way! Right now I'm 
pretty happy with Windows 95, DOS 6.22 and OS/2 Warp -- but I'm casting 
lustful eyes upon Linux. What the heck; I can afford the disk space (for 
now). I don't want to give away too much about System Commander, since 
Jim Yearwood is covering it in his "Been There, Done That" column this 
month. But I have to say I haven't experienced anything horrible or 
fatal. If I was asking for trouble, trouble decided to pass on by. I 
can't wait to see what all the fuss is about OS/2.


>>[ A Visit From the Graphics "Cover Boy" ]<<

   We had a visitor early this month (July). Maurice Hamoy, the 
Communications VP from Inset Systems, came to demo a beta of HiJaak 95. 
(If you've seen the HiJaak Graphics Suite box, you've seen Hamoy; that's 
his face image-edited into various "looks.") HiJaak 95 is a Windows 95 
version of Inset's popular image viewer/conversion utility. It does 
something really, really neat -- it hooks into the guts of the Windows 
95 system, making it easier than ever to look at your graphics.

   Let's talk a little Windows 95 background. When you're in Explorer -- 
a sort of souped-up File Manager, you see program icons next to files to 
help you visually identify files by type. For example, a Word document 
file has a little picture of the Word icon next to it. A .PCX file, or 
any other graphics file recognized by Windows Paintbrush, has a picture 
of the Windows Paintbrush icon next to it.

   HiJaak goes Windows 95 one better with graphics files: it doesn't 
show you little icons of a program that can merely *load* the picture, 
it *shows you the picture itself* -- in thumbnail form. And HiJaak 95 
recognizes more than 70 image file formats! Now you won't have to guess 
which picture is "hiding" behind a filename -- you'll know at a glance. 
People who deal with lots of images will *love* this. HiJaak 95 also 
lets you catalog and search for files by typed descriptions -- and find 
images by embedded text. Did you know CorelDRAW! .CDR files contain 
embedded, descriptive keywords? We didn't, until Hamoy told us. (Wonder 
if Corel knows? We couldn't find mention of it in the manuals. <G>) This 
makes HiJaak 95 a spiffy companion for CorelDRAW!

   HiJaak 95 will even catalog images on other media, such as backup 
floppies or Photo CDs. If you right-click a thumbnail to load a Photo CD 
image, the program will prompt you to insert that disc.

   Remember I said HiJaak 95 "hooks into the guts of the Windows 95 
system"? Well, what this means is that HiJaak 95 becomes part of every 
Windows 95 program -- you can view, image-edit or print images from 
every program's Open and Save As dialog boxes. You don't need to go 
looking for a HiJaak "group" or "folder," because none is needed. HiJaak 
embeds itself into the system -- it becomes part of Windows 95.

   Microsoft left hooks that allows programmers to integrate their 
utilities into Windows 95. HiJaak 95 is the first program we've 
encountered that takes advantage of these hooks, but we can hardly wait 
to see the kinds of things that will show up. Imagine what an embedded 
Norton Desktop will look like!

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