1995

Newsletters

9501

My family had just settled down around the Christmas tree and begun to open their presents. Nice presents for everyone and Papa gets ... a CD ROM. Round two, Papa gets ... a CD ROM. And for the whole family ... a CD ROM.

Oh, did I mention we were going to upgrade the computer for Multimedia? Looks like the whole family was listening. Unfortunately I must have forgotten.

Well, out into the post-Christmas shopping blitz I went. Mission: to buy that CD ROM upgrade that I reported I was going to get last issue. On my previous trips I had pretty much settled on the Sound Blaster upgrade kits. I figured that Creative Labs wouldn't sell junk. Plus I get 'real' Sound Blaster sound. They also offer unlimited technical support 8am to midnight, 7 days a week.

I checked Best Buys, Egghead, Comp USA and Elec-tek. The prices were almost identical (less than a dollar difference). I decided on Comp USA because they had the most other junk that I wanted. They also had the biggest selection of kits, including the 'Digital Schoolhouse' upgrade kit which I purchased. I also bought a 540 MB Western Digital Hard Drive (which is the same brand as my existing drive), a new gray mousepad and some CD holders (not caddies or trays, just storage boxes).

The 'Digital Schoolhouse' kit has a 16 bit Sound Blaster sound card, a double speed CD ROM drive that works with the sound card, stereo speakers and 20 CD ROM titles (mostly educational). The 'Discover' kit was about $50 less than the 'Digital Schoolhouse' but had mainly games. The next step up was the 'Edutainment' kit, but it was over $100 more. The 'Digital Schoolhouse' seemed to be the best fit for my budget.

After I got home I pulled the cover off my computer. I installed the sound card in the first empty slot. I already have a game port so I switched the jumpers to disable the one on the sound card. As for IRQs, who knows ... , I went with the default.

Next, I went to install the CD ROM drive ... Oops, no rails! I called Gateway 2000 and after a number of tries I got in touch with their customer service department and ordered a drive rail kit for $20. They said it would ship January 5th.

Well, as long as I had to wait I thought I'd go ahead and install my new hard drive. It came with a 3.5 to 5 1/4 adapter frame, but again I needed rails. I called Gateway again, but as luck would have it the kit already had two sets of rails, not just one. They also said that the rails had shipped that day.

So much for speedy upgrades. I have gone ahead and made a new boot floppy. I also bought 60 floppy disks and backed up my entire system with MS Backup. (I usually do incremental backups with xcopy, and skip full backups altogether.) Now I must sit and wait for my rails.

While I have been waiting I have also noticed that I have my system mounted on it's side and the CD ROM drive expects the disks to be placed in vertically. I will need to move the system up onto my computer desk to get it back upright. I will lose some work space, but it should fit.

I have also been reading the guide to the disk drive. There is a special software driver that allows the full capacity of 540 MB to be accessed. Without the special driver software IDE can only access 528 MB. I have been thinking that for only 12 MB difference I can simplify my system by eliminating the driver software and using it as a 528 MB IDE drive. (I think?) I have not decided whether to make the new drive the C or D drive. D would make it easier to get going again, because C would still be C. But the new drive is faster and would make software installation simpler because I could put everything but old archive stuff on it. I will have to think about this.

For the moment I have given up on the additional 4MB of RAM. I have enough to worry about with these drives.

If any of you would like to tell of your upgrade experiences, so we poor souls who are actually doing it could benefit from your experiences, just write it up and give it to the newsletter editor (in Windows Write format) at one of the meetings. I would love to hear from you, and I'm sure everyone else would too. It could also earn you some user bucks to help pay your dues or buy disk copies.

Mark Pendergast

9502

I would like to tell you that my Hard Drive, Sound Card and CD ROM drive are installed, and that my family is using them to death, but the sad truth is that they remain in the box.

In fact, I remain almost exactly where I was last month when I wrote about my upgrade plans.

After the last meeting I began to dig in and get ready for the arrival of my box of rails from Gateway. The first job to tackle was to get the unit up off the floor and upright on my computer desk. Fortunately there is enough room to get the unit onto the desktop, unlike my original computer hutch. I pulled out my computer desk and slid the computer through the back and up onto the desktop. Viola, no problem. Step one complete.

The next day I went to turn on the computer and ... nothing. Oh, the monitor light came on and the modem lights lit, but no fan, no hard drive, no obnoxious noise from the floppy, nada. Great! Well, I checked all the external wires, the outlet was hot. Off comes the case, nothing looked obvious. The notice on the power supply looked ominous: NO USER SERVICEABLE PARTS INSIDE. Looks like a challenge to me. (Just like a red flag to a bull)

After spending an hour finding my 90 degree philips screw driver, it only took another half hour to worm my way into the power supply. I poked around and again saw nothing obvious. Then all at once the fan started up, hitting my volt-meter probe with the blade and scaring the #### out of me. It looked like the power leads to the main transformer had worked their way loose. I pushed them on tighter with a pliers and haven't seen the problem since.

Finally, the rail kit arrived. It sat on top of the cupboard in the kitchen until the weekend I was finally ready to start my upgrade. I took the cover off my computer and undid all the radiation shields. I took out the new hard drive and read the installation manual three times. The 540 meg. drive looked exactly like my 125 meg. one. The mounting hardware from Gateway also looked identical to my old drive. I mounted the hard drive in the 3.5 to 5.25 adapter frame. Next I screwed the rails on the adapter. Then slide the drive into the drive bay ... oops, only half way. Gateway sent me round head screws, but the old rails had flat head screws. The round head screws stuck out too far.

Being the practical sort I said "A screw is a screw, I'll just go to the hardware store and buy some". I found the screws right away. I bought both one-quarter and three-eights inch lengths just to save the trip if one did not work. Home I went with my treasure, and back to the computer. Off with the old screws, on with the new. Wait a minute, these ones are flat heads, but they stick out just as far as the round headed ones. Gateway must have used a custom small headed screw. Time to call customer service.

I got through to Gateway customer service on the first try. A pleasant sounding young woman answered the line. I explained that they had sent me the right upgrade kit with the wrong screws, and that I would like them to send me the right screws. ( It seemed a simple request)

She asked me if I wanted to order a new rail kit. Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I retold the entire story and asked her to send me the correct screws. She then asked me for a credit card number. What? She would ship a new kit and hold my credit card number hostage until my old kit showed up on their dock. Now that I knew the English was not her primary language, I began speaking in a very slow baby talk that I use with my five year old son when he does something I don't want to have happen again. "I ordered from Gateway because you have a full record of my machine configuration. When I ordered the rails, your representative asked for my order number to insure that the rails matched MY system. It was YOUR fault that the screws don't match my system. Send me the correct screws!" She replied that she would need to check. (elevator music ...)

When she came back she asked me what year I had ordered my system. Huh? I started digging, maybe three years or so. I found the invoice, 2/92. Who cares they have my order number, right??? She asked me the system model and case style. She said your new rail kit will arrive on January 26th. Wait, I only need the screws. Sorry, that's just the way we do things.

Well I have no idea what will show up with my new rail kit. The cynic in me says it will be identical to the old one. Wrong screws. But, who knows maybe I'll get just what I need.

P.S. January 26th has come and gone and no rails have shown up on my door step. Not even a little note from the UPS man. What was that Gateway 800 number again?

So, one month later here I sit - nada, zip, zero, zilch.

I love IBM computing.

P.P.S. Thanks to Ron Rich for the article on Set-up Advisor software from Touchstone. I plan to get a copy of it soon.

Mark Pendergast

9503

I am happy to report that I have made some progress on my CD ROM upgrade. Unfortunately, I still have nothing to show for all my heroic efforts since last month, except 4 screws.

For those of you new to the saga, a brief recap: I got some CDs for Christmas because I told everyone I was going to get a drive. I then had to go out and actually get the CD ROM drive. I also got a bigger hard drive to hold the 10 meg per CD that gets dumped on the hard drive. When I got home I found I needed mounting rails for both drives. I got the rail kit from Gateway computer, but it came with the wrong screws. (ie: it would not fit in the case)

Let me now pick up where I left off last month. The second shipment from Gateway arrived with only one set of rails and the same screws I got the first time. Net gain of zero. I called Gateway again and explained my problem to the customer service rep. He checked all the documentation on the unit and explained that you just can't get there from here. Fortunately, he punted. He passed me on to one of their technicians.

The technician listened to my tale of woe. I have gotten quite good at telling it. She agreed, can't get there from here. She put me on hold and started calling people. Five minutes later she was back. She had some part numbers for screws and would send me a bag with eight of them.

Wait, wait, wait ..... The envelope from Gateway arrived and I almost didn't have the heart to look in it. When I did, I found four of the screws I needed and 16 that were the same as the other bad ones. This was good news. Although I was supposed to get eight good screws, the four would get me started because only the four rear screws on the drive had the low clearance problem. The front four would work with my screws from the hardware store. I also found the problem, the 4 good screws were described as motherboard hold-down screws. No wonder they were never sent.

I mounted the hard drive in the 3.5 to 5.25 adapter, I added the small screws in the rear and the larger ones in front. It fit!

I disconnected my hard drive and connected the new one as the only drive. I booted the machine from the floppy and reset the CMOS for the new drive. Then I did an FDISK and a FORMAT /S. The drive had a whopping 11 meg on it. I did not want to use the vendor supplied disk driver so I called Western Digital and asked how to fake out the CMOS to get 528 meg or even 505 meg. No way they said. It can't be done. Your BIOS is too old to see more than 1024 cylinders. Either upgrade your BIOS or just use the driver.

I called Gateway to get a quote on a new BIOS. They don't sell it, but had the number of a company that does. Micro Firmware quoted $69 plus shipping. I mentioned that I had seen some BIOS in the Computer Shopper for half that price and the representative started spewing forth all sorts of legal and ethical trivia about licensed source code and sole distribution rights and such. I said I'd call back some time and hung up.

I called COMP-USA and asked the rep if I could exchange my 540 meg drive for a 425 meg that would probably work with my old BIOS. He explained that I had gone beyond my 30 day window, and that I would have to talk to a manager. He said that the manager always said no over the phone so I should come in personally and get in his face. That, he felt, was sure to get results.

I finally decided life is too short to waste on stuff like this, so I went ahead and ordered the new BIOS from Micro Firmware. The next rep I got didn't sound like Charles Manson, one bit. He said that I could get an 8 gigabyte drive and the BIOS would support it. I also ordered the Setup Advisor program from Elek-tek for $24. They were just receiving version 2 so I ordered it over the phone. They said they would ship it to my house for only $6. That looked like less than gas money so I said great.

In retrospect, I have sent almost enough money to have purchased a NEW computer with CD ROM and a 486 processor. I guess this is like trying to put together a car from service parts. It would cost $100,000.

I still plan to call Gateway and get my other four screws. No, I don't need them, but I am in the market for a new computer and I want to know if they're my kind of people. I would call them now, but they keep business hours, not hacker hours. I have seen that IBM and Compaq have seven day, 24 hour support lines for their computers. I would like to hear from anyone that has had experience with the support provided at two AM on Saturday night.

I hope that April will be the last in this series, but I expected that it would install without problems in the first place.

Ah, I love the smell of IBM Computing in the morning. (Two AM that is.)

Mark Pendergast

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(and live to tell about it)

In the February meeting we discussed how the DOS Shell will allow you to highlight a file, push a function key, and have the file come up in the editor. Nobody knew of a simple way to get this functionality in the Windows File Manager. And even if you used on of the complex ways to launch notepad on a file, many times notepad would report that the file was too big to fit in notepad.

Some ideas presented at the meeting were: to associate the file type with the notepad in the File/Associate menu. (This will not work for files that already have associations and does not fix the file-too-big problem). Use File/Run menu and insert the command notepad or write before the file name. (This is not simple, but does achieve the desired functionality). Someone had seen a way to do it in a magazine. (It was not clear how this was executed, or what the capabilities were). And someone suggested that a macro could be recorded to do it.

I picked up on the last idea and developed a macro based solution that in principle could work for any application or utility that made sense.

Invoke File Manager and select a file.

Invoke Macro recorder. (usually in accessories group)

From the menu bar select: Macro/Record...

On the Macro Record form fill in:

Record Macro Name = FM_Notepad

Shortcut Key = F12

<Ctrl> = checked

Playback to: Same Application

Playback speed: fast

Continuous loop = not checked

Enable Shortcut keys = checked

Record Mouse = Ignore Mouse

Relative to = Window

Description = Run notepad on selected file in file manager

Press Start

The recorder will minimize on the bottom of the screen and begin to flash.

Type:

<Alt> f r <Ctrl>-<left arrow> notepad <space> <Enter>

(Note: Do not type the "<" or ">" characters, they are used to show special keys)

A notepad window should appear with your file displayed.

Click on the flashing recorder icon at the bottom of your desktop

On the Recorder form:

check the "Save Macro" button

Press: OK

Notice that the Recorder icon on the bottom of the screen stops flashing.

Close the notepad window

Double click on Recorder icon at the bottom of the screen.

In the Recorder window you should see:

Ctrl-F12 FM_Notepad

From the menu bar select: Macro/Record...

On the Macro Record form fill in:

Record Macro Name = FM_Write

Shortcut Key = F11

<ctrl> = checked

Playback to: Same Application

Playback speed: fast

Continuous loop = not checked

Enable Shortcut keys = checked

Record Mouse = Ignore Mouse

Relative to = Window

Description = Run write on selected file in file manager

Press Start

The recorder will minimize on the bottom of the screen and begin to flash.

Type:

<Alt> f r <Ctrl>-<left arrow> write <space> <Enter> n <Enter>

(Note: Do not type the "<" or ">" characters, they are used to show special keys)

A write window should appear with your file displayed.

Click on the flashing recorder icon at the bottom of your desktop

On the Recorder form:

check the "Save Macro" button

Press: OK

Notice that the Recorder icon on the bottom of the screen stops flashing.

Close the write window

Double click on Recorder icon at the bottom of the screen.

In the Recorder window you should see:

Ctrl-F12 FM_Notepad

Ctrl-F11 FM_Write

From the menu bar select: File/Save As

On the Save As form enter:

File Name = mymacros.rec

Press: OK

Close the Recorder window

Go to the Program Manager window

Select the Recorder icon

From the menu bar select: File/Copy

On the Copy form enter:

To Group = Startup

Press: OK

In Program Manager open the Startup group.

Click on the Recorder icon.

From the menu bar select: File/Properties

On the Properties Menu enter:

Description = mymacros

Command line = recorder.exe mymacros.rec

Run Minimized box = checked

Press: OK

Double-click on the new mymacros icon

The program should run as an icon minimized at the bottom of the screen.

Switch to the File Manager window

Click on a text file in the file window

Press: <Ctrl>- F12

Voila - notepad should display your file

Close notepad

Press: <Ctrl>-F11

Voila - write should display your file as unconverted text

Close write.

Enjoy!

Every time you reboot the macro player will run minimized from your startup file.

The macros will only run when a file manager window is open on the screen.

First try notepad (<Ctrl>-F12)

If the file is too large, try write (<Ctrl>-F11)

This will work with executable files (like autoexec.bat) that can not use association.

Notepad comes up very fast.

Write takes a few seconds (on my machine 386/33 4M).

If anyone else has some handy macros, write them up in the newsletter, make a presentation, or just let us know about it at the question and answer session. I would love to hear from you.

Mark Pendergast

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9504

(No, this is not an April Fools story!)

I guess the title says it all, but for those of you that are into S&M (Service and Maintenance) I will cover the final chapter in detail. As you may recall I have been fighting to install a Hard Drive and CD ROM upgrade since Christmas. I have been unable to get mounting rail screws from my computer vendor, and when I did my BIOS wouldn't support the larger drive (540M). When we last parted I had just ordered a BIOS upgrade and a program called Setup Advisor that helps sort out address and IRQ conflicts.

Well, my BIOS upgrade arrived. I unpacked it and read The manual cover to cover. This stuff is great. The new BIOS will do everything but go for coffee. The main new features are:

Password security - The system will allow me to set a password that must be entered before the computer will boot. It also allows me to restrict access to the floppy drive and disable writes to the boot sector. (This prevents boot sector virus activity).

Large Drive Support - The new BIOS supports drives as large as 8 Gigabytes. It will also ask the hard drive how big it is and set up the drive type for me.

2.88 Floppy Support - You can mix and match floppies up to 2.88M

Calendar reminder - The system can be set to print a message every so often to remind you to do backups or virus checks. The message will repeat on every boot-up until you type: Yes, I did it.

The BIOS also had another interesting section. It told me that most IDE drives could be formatted with anything less than the maximum parameters. This was important because if I had the BIOS ask for the drive size and it had been formatted smaller (to get around the old BIOS problem), there was no way I could read the data. So now I find out that I could have just lied to the BIOS to get less cylinders. The Western Digital Guy told me point blank that this couldn't be done.

I popped the cover of my unit and installed the new BIOS chip. No problem. The system booted from floppy and I went into the setup screen. There was no pre-defined type for my 540M drive, so I entered the parameters by hand. Then it dawned on me that I could just have the BIOS ask the drive what size it was. Duh. I tried it, it worked. Cool. I reformatted the drive to 540M. The system booted from the hard drive just fine.

I set up the 540M as the master drive and my old drive as the slave. I rebooted the system and it came up fine. I used XCOPY to copy all the files and directories from D to C. I ran SCANDISK on both drives and found no problems. I fired up windows and it complained that its swap file was missing. Oops. I just created a new one.

At last, I was done with my hard drive upgrade.

I opened up the CD ROM and started to attach the mounting rails. No good. The Gateway screws were the wrong size. (I believe the problem was Metric vs. English) The CD screws were too big to fit in the case. Here we go again.

I decided that brute force was the most appropriate response to the situation. I got out the screws that I bought from the hardware store and used them as taps to tap out the metric holes to English threads. I used about 100 pounds of force to jam the screws into the holes. Everything went well until I sheared off one of the screws in the hole. Oops. I had to disassemble the CD ROM unit and use a side-cutter to back the screw body out of the hole a quarter turn at a time. I eventually tapped out all four holes and mounted the side rails.

The unit slipped into the case and I hooked up all the cables. The controller was the sound card that I had installed earlier. The cable routing was a little tight, but everything fit pretty well.

I rebooted the system and installed the Sound Blaster software. The install disk had an address and IRQ diagnostic program included. Everything passed the test. I put in an audio CD and played it. Great so far. I loaded "Gus goes to Cybertown". It came up and ran just fine.

Three months for a disk drive, one day for a CD ROM. Not bad.

I received Setup Advisor in the mail. I have not had the time or the need to load it. Everything seems to be working just fine. I have loaded a number of games and educational software and everything has run well. I am listening to an audio CD as I an composing this months newsletter article. Cool!

I hope my epic adventure has given you some insights into how to upgrade your computer. I didn't intend to scare anyone off, but rather to make sure you are prepared before you set off on your own adventure. If you are squeamish about this sort of thing you might ask your dealer to install your unit.

I hope to hear from some of you of your adventures with upgrades. Is there a scanner or video card epic you could contribute to the Group. How about a step by step guide to setting up Internet access through Hollycom. Just pen (mouse?) your epic in windows write format and submit it on disk to one of the officers. We pay one user buck per half page.

Mark Pendergast

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9505

(What the heck can I use it for ?)

Windows 3.1 came with a Program Manager group named StartUp. Unlike most groups this one had nothing in it. The StartUp group remains a mystery to many people. I would like to point out some cool things that can be done with the StartUp group. I will also give a general overview of what it is and how it works.

The StartUp group allows you to start applications when you start Windows. Think of it as an AUTOEXEC.BAT file for the Windows environment.

The functionality of the StartUp group was actually available in earlier versions of Windows. It was buried in the WIN.INI file and had to be edited in the Notepad editor. In fact the WIN.INI file still has the lines 'RUN=' and 'LOAD=' that allow you to run programs in a window or minimized when Windows starts. Many networking systems that work with Windows use this feature to load their networking drivers into the Windows environment.

The time, the time, who's got the time ...

One of my favorite programs to have running on the Windows Desktop is the Clock. I add the clock program to the StartUp group and change the program's setup to check the 'run minimized' box. When Windows starts, I get the minimized clock icon down in the lower left part of the desktop. This has saved me from many 'over-nighters' when I glanced down at the clock and saw 12:01 AM. Oops!

I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date ...

The Windows Calendar program has an alarm feature to alert you at a designated date and time. The problem is that the Calendar application must be running and the Calendar file with the date and time must be open. Just copy the Calendar program icon to the StartUp group. Modify the program item to run minimized. Then modify the command line to open the Calendar document where you list all your appointments. When Windows starts you will have your alarm clock set automatically.

Macros at your fingertips !

A few months ago I presented a detailed plan on how to set up macros to view files from File Manager without developing an association. Just develop some macros to read the current file into Notepad or Write. Then copy the macro_player icon into the StartUp group. Have the macro_player program group item set to run minimized and add the name of the macro file to the command line. This will make them available all the time. This will work with any other macros you can devise.

Now where did I put that File Manager ?

I always need to check on some files, create a new subdirectory or format a floppy disk and can never seem to find my copy of File Manager. (Was that in Main or Accessories?) I have solved this problem by keeping a hot running copy of File Manager minimized at the bottom of the screen. That way I can always find it. I use the StartUp group to run a minimized copy of File Manager whenever I start Windows.

Odds and ends.

I have seen all sorts of shareware to waste time, resources and screen space on Windows. These include a coffee cup that steams, a cigarette that burns to ash, and roaches that hide under your windows and scurry about when you disturb them. (I guess they eat the leftover pizza that hackers always have lying around). All these odds and ends can be launched through the StartUp group.

The Dark Side of the StartUp group ...

The dark side of the StartUp group is all the resources that these things eat up on your system. You must weigh the convenience of having File Manager or Clock at your fingertips versus having a few more bytes of memory for your Spreadsheet. On the whole, most home users should not see much problem with Clock or File Manager running in the background, but if you like to make huge documents or have fifteen things open at once on the desktop you may find that overuse of the StartUp group is a real problem.

I hope this gives you some insights into the workings of the StartUp group and allows you to get a little more enjoyment out of your system.

Mark Pendergast

----------------------------

(A first look)

I purchased Microsoft Publisher this past month. I have become involved with some forward planning activities for Taylor Schools and we though that we should publish a newsletter. My Microsoft Works does just fine for generating 'copy' to print (copy is one of them fancy journalism words for text), but has very little flexibility to format pages into the jazzy layouts that we would like to produce.

Publisher comes on five 3.5" disks. It was easy to install and came right up the first try.

The price was right, at just under $100. The system requires Windows 3.1, 4 Meg of RAM and 13 Meg free on your hard drive.

There are a number of wizards to give you a good start on just about anything you want.

Each of the Wizards can work to a number of different styles, for jazzy to traditional, that are provided. There are Wizards for Letterhead, Business Forms, Newsletters, Brochures, Flyers, Banners and Cards. For fun there are Wizards for Paper Aeroplanes and Origami shapes.

There are also a very large selection of document templates for awards, flyers, ads, etc. The clip art is rather limited, but they do throw in 20 very nice true type fonts.

I began with the Newsletter Wizard. I chose a Jazzy style, four page newsletter and pressed OK. The wizard is set up to let you watch what it is doing as it executes your request. There is even a speed control to slow it down to see better. Everything that is created by the Wizard could be created by a user if they knew all the features of the program and once the Wizard is done all the parts of the newsletter are editable by the user.

The wizard filled in titles like "Put your title here" and text like "Just fill your text in here and make a great looking newsletter.". It used some other features like drop capitals at the start of the article and some clip art to space things out. I added some of my own headlines and then got down to figuring out how the program really worked.

Desktop publishing programs are just plain WEIRD!

I have used many word processors over the years and have had little difficulty switching between them. The commands may be different, but they all 'thought' the same way. Publishing has little to do with typing text. Most publishing programs almost treat it as an afterthought. The big deal in publishing is page layout. You can't even type text until you've indicated in detail where it should go.

It took me a while to figure out how MS Publisher thinks. Publisher puts everything in 'frames'. Frames are little boxes you draw on the screen to hold text, pictures or tables. The Wizard plunks down frames to match the type of document you asked for and then fills them with things that match the style you picked.

After some time I got the hang of dragging frames around and linking them so that text that filled one frame would wrap to another frame somewhere else in the document. Publisher will even automate the 'continued on page 2' - 'continued from page 1' dialog.

It is still kind of odd for me to type text into Publisher, so I will continue to use MS Works to write my articles and then import them into Publisher to get the layout I want. All in all it is a very easy to use publishing program. Compared to some of the industrial strength Desktop Publishers I've tried to learn at work it is a piece of cake.

MS Publisher is a good middle ground between word processors that run out of gas when it comes to fancy page layouts and Desktop Publishing programs that are so complicated that you must be a rocket scientist to use them. The main hurdle is learning to think like a page layout application. I am happy I bought the program and plan to use it often in the future.

Mark Pendergast

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9506

Kidworks 2

Kidworks 2 is a DOS program that can be run under Windows. It has a story writer, picture painter, icon maker and story reader. The program reads aloud the stories you write. You can use words or icons that represent the words. The icon maker allows you to add words that don't exist (like your child's name).

The story writer lets you write stories. Just type in the words or go to the grab bag of icons that represent common words. You can also chose a picture to go along with your story.

When you enter the story reader it asks you to pick one of the stories you've written. It displays the associated picture and reads the story.

The interface is a bit weird. They have chosen their own icons for ok and cancel. Help doesn't bring up a help screen, but changes to a non-functional "push on a key and I'll tell you what it does" mode. You must push on the help key a second time to exit this mode.

My son sometimes gets stuck in this mode and can't figure out how to get going again.

On the whole it is a good program. My five year old is not much with words yet, but likes to hear the system try to pronounce the gibberish he types in. He also like the icons and the ability to print his story to the printer (complete with icons).

The program runs in 640x480x16 color mode. It runs just fine on my 386/33.

Stradiwackius is from Vroom Books. You are guided through the world of musical instruments by three friendly worms. Each worm explores a different aspect of learning. One relates facts, one works with words and one allows you to draw pictures.

The interface is pretty obvious. You can go forward, backward, pick a worm friend to help you or pick from an index of all the scenarios available in the program. You can also click on any number of things in the pictures and have things happen. The program offers English, Spanish, French and Japanese versions and you can switch versions in mid-stream. My son loves the French pronunciations.

The program runs in 640x480x16 color mode. It runs a little slow on my 386/33.

Four Footed Friends is also from Vroom Books. You are guided through a turn-of-the-century-vintage book of silly animal rhymes by three friendly worms. Each worm explores a different aspect of learning. One relates facts, one works with words and one allows you to draw pictures.

The interface is pretty obvious. You can go forward, backward, pick a worm friend to help you or pick form an index of all the scenarios available in the program. You can also click on any number of things in the pictures and have things happen. The program offers English, Spanish, French and Japanese versions and you can switch versions in mid-stream.

The program runs in 640x480x16 color mode. It runs a little slow on my 386/33.

Allie's Playhouse by Opcode Interactive is a Windows program. Allie is a strange alien being with a weird voice. You start by picking a friend, one of six children, to act as narrator for this visit. Then you enter the playhouse.

There are about a dozen fun activities that you can participate in by pressing some of the objects in the playhouse. There are an equal number of objects that do other weird things. For example if you click on the cassette player, the screen says "PARTY TIME" and dance music plays for about 30 seconds while all the friends verbally 'party down'.

Each activity has a quiz of some sort that can be activated after the lesson is complete. Some lessons include anatomy, solar system, musical sounds, counting, telling time, drawing, animal sounds, alphabet and a maze.

This is probably the best of the programs reviewed here. It has a huge number of activities and the interface is easy to understand.

The program runs in 640x480x16 color mode. It runs just fine on my 386/33.

Gus goes to Cybertown is a Modern Media Ventures Game. Gus and his friends the cyberbuds go to Cybertown and explore what happens when you click various things, each of the four stores you visit has a quiz of some sort and there is also a segment of cyberbuds in history.

Each of the cyberbuds hides in each of the areas to explore. When you find him he will relate some useful (?) fact about something.

In all this is the simplest of the games reviewed. It is mainly an explore game, but does have some very simple matching quiz type activities.

The program will run in 640x480x16 color mode, but prefers 640x480x256 colors. It is a little slow on my 386/33.

Mark Pendergast

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Most people have backups of their system and also of there own user created files. I have a strategy that addresses files that sit between those two extremes and it has saved my rear end on a number of occasions. My strategy is to backup my config files on-line to make it easy to recover them when a new program I've installed trashes them.

Since I got my CD ROM drive I find I load new programs almost every week. They almost all want to do something to my config files. I also doubled the size of my Autoexec.bat and Config.sys files when I added my CD ROM and sound card. This has put me in a situation where I am very vulnerable to system crashes due to software installs.

The solution I've found is to create a directory on my hard drive to store copies of my config files before I do an install. This is much easier than doing a full backup and makes recovery a snap.

I call my config backup directory 'BACKUP'. Under the backup directory I name the subdirectories for the date preceded by a 'W' (for Windows, I guess). The structure looks like this:

C:\BACKUP

W940223

W940516

W941212

W950110

W950206

W950312

When I plan to install a new program, or even when I just think of it, I create a new subdirectory and store my most important config files under it. These files include autoexec.bat, config.sys, win.ini, system.ini, and progman.ini. I have even written a bat file that does all the dirty work for me. I looks like this:

copy c:\autoexec.bat .

copy c:\config.sys .

copy c:\windows\win.ini .

copy c:\windows\system.ini .

copy c:\windows\progman.ini .

To backup my config files I just:

CD to the BACKUP directory

MKDIR a subdirectory named 'W' + <todays date as YYMMDD>

CD to the subdirectory

Execute the script (or copy the files by hand)

CD to \

This has saved me a large number of hours when a poorly behaved program trashes my config files. I feel it is much faster than doing full backups all the time. It also is more efficient than making backups of the files every time I backup my personal files. The config files are not huge, but they are the heart of your system. You have invested many hours of pain and sweat arranging them in whatever magical, mystical order your system requires to work properly. This is a simple way to assure that your efforts wont be lost in seconds when some new software tries to make itself at home on your system.

If you have any tips or tricks that you use to make your DOS, Windows, or OS2 environment more safe, secure or just more comfortable, I would love to here about them. I'm sure the rest of the group would love to benefit from your experience, rather than attending classes at the school of hard knocks. Please take the time to sit down and bang out a short article on your experiences. It will make you feel good to help others and it will also earn you a fist full of User Bucks that you can use any way you want.

Hope to hear from all of you soon,

Mark Pendergast

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9507

Harry and the Haunted House

By: Mark Schlichting

Living Books

Harry and the Haunted House is a great CD ROM. My children, 5 and 2.5, have enjoyed it tremendously. The Living Books format works very well. The story line is very simple, but everything seems larger than life when seen through the eyes of the characters.

In read mode the CD acts like a regular book. The computer reads the story aloud. The pages are animated to show the action as the book is read. The scenes are very detailed and the animation is not jerky or unnatural.

In play mode the CD allows the reader to interact with the characters and the scenery. The computer reads the introduction to each page, then waits until the reader clicks on an object in the scene. The object (character, furniture, or even backdrop) reacts to the touch and plays out a little side plot. Pictures sing, bugs read the newspaper, and even ghosts appear and dance. When you click to go to the next page, the computer completes telling the story for that page and moves on to the next page introduction.

The package includes a 'real' book of the story so you can follow along with the computer, or so you can read it yourself. This makes it a great bedtime storybook, even if you don't have a CD ROM drive on your laptop.

The package requires a 386SX with 4 MB ram. It runs in Windows 3.1 in Super VGA 640x480x256 color mode. It likes Sound Blaster Sound and requires a mouse. The book ran very well on my 386/33. It was quick and well behaved.

The package includes Windows and Macintosh versions on the same CD. The book runs in English and Spanish. It includes a demo version of half a dozen other living books.

If you have used any other children's CD ROMs I would like to hear from you. Please take a half hour and jot down your thoughts. It will help the rest of the group wade though the thousands of CD choices available and earn you some valuable user bucks.

Mark Pendergast

---------------------------------

There has been so much written about this in the popular media that I don't know what more I can say, but I will try to give a good summary and some thoughts on what makes sense.

As with almost anything these days, porn is in the eye of the beholder.

Some milder examples of things people find offensive are profanity in topical discussions, dirty jokes, pin-up pictures of scantily clad men and women. For the most part these are things you could see on network TV, will certainly see on cable and can purchase at any department store.

The medium level is frank discussions of sex in all its many forms, pictures of men and women enjoying sex in all its many forms, erotic stories and poems. This is the level that most people have trouble with, especially parents. Again, most of this is available elsewhere. It may be harder to obtain, but it is there just the same.

The extremes go out as far as the imagination will allow. Pedofiles offering anything for an exciting encounter, pictures of sex between people, animals, minerals, vegetables and/or children (not necessarily in that order), stories of gang rapes, rape/murders and gay sex.

These are things that are truly out of the ordinary and would normally not be available in a suburban rural Indiana neighborhood. Almost everyone, except deviants and the ACLU, have trouble with this.

Almost any feature of the internet can be used for base purposes. The current champion of sordid affairs is probably Netnews, but the newer World Wide Web is making up ground fast.

Netnews is like a bulletin board. People leave notes for everyone to read. When you log on you read all the notes that have been posted since the last time you looked. You can also reply to a note left by someone else.

There are dozens of newsgroups devoted to sex, sexy stories, and sexy pictures. You can access news with a minimum of hardware and software. The discussions and stories are available to anyone with access to news. In general there is no central coordination of newsgroups. Anyone can post anything they like with little difficulty. The pictures have to be encoded to be posted, so it takes some sophisticated software to decode them and reconstruct the original picture. The picture will also require some sort of viewer program to see the image. This tends to limit access to pictures to someone with some technological know-how. Nobody sees pornographic pictures on Netnews by accident.

The World Wide Web (or just the Web) is a new phenomenon on the net. It provides formatted text and pictures at the touch of a button. Hypertext links from keywords to other pages allow rapid navigation around the world.

Web servers tend to have administrators who police content for copyright violations, and to a lesser extent rude content. It takes more resources and technical know-how to set up a Web server than it does to post to a newsgroup. This has for the most part kept it pretty clean up to this point. There are Web pages for Playboy and Penthouse, but little that falls into the extreme category. Unlike Netnews, pictures are the heart and soul of the Web. They are available as the default mode of communications. The Web browser software includes all the necessary components to view pictures with no additional decoding.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is simply a way to copy files around the net. There are file servers that archive all sorts of information as files. Some archives keep dirty jokes, stories and pictures. These are accessible through FTP. Like the Web, FTP sites tend to have administrators so there are not a large number of places to get truly deviant stuff.

E-mail is safe unless some undesirable type finds out your username and nodename from some other source (like the reply to line that gets included when you post to a Netnews group). They can then send you mail on any subject they like. This is how some children have been talked into doing things they might not have otherwise done.

Gopher, WAIS, Archie, Veronica, World Wide Web Worm, Yahoo, etc. are programs that search the net for information that you want to find. They are not pornographic in themselves, but allow people to look for keywords like "sex", or combinations of words like "sex and young and trapeze and whip" all in the same description.

1. Nothing

This is about all you can do if you don't take the time to get informed, develop a plan and work with your kids.

2. Ban your child from the internet and on-line services.

For younger children this may make sense. The internet is still a lot like the old west. There are very few lawmen and many desperados on the net. There are times when "better safe than sorry" is the best policy.

3. Use a provider like America On-Line (AOL) or Prodigy

These providers do not guarantee that your child will not encounter anything rude on their services, but they do provide a measure of parental control not found with other 'raw' internet providers. AOL and Prodigy have different strategies to address these issues. Try them both to see which one works for you. (At this time only Prodigy has a Web browser)

4. Do what you would do with anything else: educate, limit, observe, correct

Treat the internet like anything else that can be abused. Educate yourself and your child, set limits that you want your child to respect, observe their behavior (including spot checks if you feel the need), correct any inappropriate behavior in a firm but loving way.

In my mind the internet is no worse than any other threat: drugs, wild friends, perverts, or the popular media. The internet is no different than the rotten kid down the street that seems to have no parental supervision, Billy Bob's Pool Hall, or the local dope dealer. The only difference is you are probably more informed on these 'traditional' threats than you are on the internet.

So, go get "The Complete Idiots Guide to the Internet" or "Internet for Dummies". Plunk down your $10 a month for Prodigy or AOL and test drive this den of thieves for yourself.

Oh ... and by the way you really need to:

'Nuff said,

Mark Pendergast

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9508

I just had an opportunity at work to point out an old trick I learned for making spreadsheets more reliable. I thought that I could share this trick with you and maybe save you some grief in the future.

Most people are familiar with the standard spreadsheet format for showing data for two different variables. I will use as an example a simple budget for four quarters of a year and with four budget accounts. If we place time across the columns and use accounts for the rows, the standard format would have us subtotal each column and row at the lower or left hand margin like this:

In this sheet the weak link is cell F7. It is normally the sum of all the entries in the F column. In theory it is also the sum of all the entries in row 7. If someone were to accidentally type over one of the formulas in the sub-total rows or add a row or column and not correctly update the formulas we might not notice the error because the F7 cell only adds up one way.

The tip for catching this type of error is to go ahead and add up the other sub-totals and compare them to the first set. To do this without confusing things I use a check cell. In this case cell F8.

The formula in cell F7 looks something like "=sum(f2:f5)". The corresponding formula to find the total from the opposite sub totals is "=sum(b7:e7)". To perform our check we will add a formula to cell F8 that represents the difference of these two formulas. So F8 will contain "=sum(b7:e7)-F7". The result of this calculation should always be zero! (Be sure you set the format of cell F8 to some fixed value, if not you may get something like 1E-32 which represents the roundoff error of your computer, not the error of your spreadsheet.

To make the operation of this check more obvious we can add the words "Check=" to cell E8 or "=Check" to cell G8. This little check may not catch all your spreadsheet errors, but it will catch some of the more common ones. It is simple to add and easy to understand, too.

If you have any spreadsheet auditing tips I would love to have you write a short article for the newsletter. There is nothing I hate like badly behaved numbers in a spreadsheet that I am using to do something important.

Mark Pendergast

------------------------------

The COMPUTER SHOPPER Magazine provided this form for keeping track of all the options on your next computer. It looks very complete and should make the hunt for your next computer (or upgrade) a little simpler.

Mail-order company_____________________________

Street Address ________________________________

City ________________ State_______ZIP__________

Salesperson __________________________________

Sales number ______________ Fax________________

Technical Support number _________

Support days and hours [] 7 days [] 5 days [] 24 hours

Other days/hours _______________

Name of configuration ______________________ CPU type _____________________

System RAM ______________Cache size (L2) __________ZIF socket []yes []no

Flash BIOS []yes []no SIMM size ______________ Max. RAM _________________

System expansion-bus architecture []VLB []PCI

Case size [] Desktop [] Slimline []Tower

Energy Star-compliant []yes []no Power supply unit ____________________wattage

Number of available expansion slots (after configuration) __________________________

Floppy disk drive(s) []3.5-inch/1.44MB []5.25-inch/1.2MB

Hard drive capacity ____________________Interface [] IDE []EIDE []SCSI

Graphics card brand/model __________________ Size graphics RAM ______________

Graphics card bus type [] VLB [] PCI [] ISA

Monitor brand/model ___________________ Diagonal screen size _________________

Max. noninterlaced resolution: []1,024x768 []1,280x1,024 [] Other

Refresh rate @ max. resolution _______________ Hz Dot pitch ____________

CD-Rom drive brand/model _______________________________________________

CD-Rom speed []Single []Double []Quadruple Interface []EIDE []SCSI

Sound card brand/model ______________________________ [] 8-bit [] 16-bit

[] Sound blaster compatible [] Speakers included Brand/model ____________________

Fax/modem [] Yes [] No Modem speed []9,600 bps [] 14.4 Kbps [] 28.8 Kbps

Voice-mail system included [] Yes [] No DOS included [] Yes [] No

Windows included [] Yes [] No If yes, version _______________________________

Other software included ___________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

Other hardware included __________________________________________________

___________________________________________________

Scanner (brand/model)___________________

Bundled software _______________________

Total price, including interface and cables $_______

Backup device _________________________

Capacity ____________ Price $__________

Network card ________________________

[] Ethernet []Token Ring Price $_________

Printer (brand/model) __________________

Price $_____________ with cable []yes []no

Money-back guarantee: []Yes []No

Return period [] 30 days [] Other

Restocking fee [] Yes []No Cost $____

Standard warranty on parts [] One year

[] Two years [] Other ______________

Standard warranty on labor ___________

Repair policy [] Ship to vendor, no charge

[] Ship to vendor with charge [] Onsite

[] Phone service with parts replacement

Who pays for return shipping?

[]Vendor []Customer

Extended warranty available [] Yes [] No

If yes, cost/terms $__________________

When getting multiple quotes from the same vendor, use the space below. Or make copies of this sheet for each quote when configuration changes are complex.

Base configuration total cost $______________

(Cross out any items noted above that are not included.)

Custom configuration $_______________

(Circle any crossed-out items that are included in this quote. Write in any additional features/products included).

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

Shipping options []Overnight $_______ []Two-day $________ [] Ground $_______

Freight company _________________

Date ordered: _______________

Date system will ship: _____________________

Date system will arrive: _________________________

Total cost of system ordered, including tax, shipping, warranties, preinstalled software (no additional charges will be made to customer) $_______________

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

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9509

About a month ago I purchased an Epson Stylus Color printer. I got it from Elek-Tek for around $500. The Stylus is the current top of the line color printer in the Industry. It is the only one I know of that will do full 720x720 dpi color printing. This very close to full photo-realistic printing. This resolution requires special paper, lots of time and lots of disk space. I have always had good luck with Epson printers so I hope my luck continues with this one.

In normal operation the printer is a little slow. Depending on the density of the content it prints between one and three pages per minute. This beats the sox off my dot matrix printer, but is a little slow for ink jets. The print quality is very good. On plain paper the printer will do 360 dpi in color and monochrome modes. The ink seems to be dry almost immediately.

The printer is PC or MAC compatible right out of the box. It has a Centronics parallel interface. It does not come with a cable. The installation manual is very clear and helpful. The ink cartridges were simple to load. There are separate color and black cartridges.

The printer has a self cleaning cycle that clears the ink jets every time you start it up. This is much simpler than the old HP inkjets that required manual cleaning of the jets with a push-pump sort of thing. There is a warning that you should not turn off the printer when it is in its clean cycle or it will not cap the ink jets and they will dry out. The paper tray holds about 100 sheets of paper. It will also feed about 10 envelopes.

The setup for the printer is fairly simple, but the list of setup options for the expert seems endless. For the moment all I do is switch between monochrome and color mode.

The setup menu includes tabs for -

Paper size - How big is the paper.

Media type - Is it plain paper, special paper or transparency.

Image settings - Lots of knobs for twiddling images.

Ink/resolution - Color or Monochrome, and dpi.

Halftoning - Blending of patterns for text vs. clip art vs. images.

These options can be set on the fly from the driver setup / options menu.

Epson has included their own print spooler software that replaces print manager. It is very nice and waits for other tasks. My old print driver would take over the machine and lock me out while it printed. The spooler creates a temporary disk file to hold the image before sending it to the printer. The manual warns that 720 dpi images can take 60-100 MB of disk space to spool. Even as high as 160 MB. The printer only has a 64 KB input buffer. It is not upgradeable that I can see. At home this is not a great limitation (as long as the ice box is close at hand and I have plenty of disk space clear), but it does tie up the computer doing work that many other printers do for you.

The Epson Stylus is energy star compliant.

In summary:

The Stylus color is a good low maintenance color printer with great high end graphics capability. Its print speed is a little slow and input buffer is very small. I feel that the printer was a good investment. It makes my wife and children happy, me too!

Mark Pendergast

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9510

I asked myself a question the other day. "Where have all the hackers gone?" They were once the heart and soul of computing, now they seem to have vanished. Did they die out like the dinosaurs or are they still going strong in some lost 'valley of the hackers' on a remote jungle island somewhere.

The modern world of mainstream computing has eliminated most of the hacking of hardware systems from the chips up and provided standard applications for most normal uses of the computer. The computer news is slanted toward the mainstream user, because that is where the money is. But, I believe the hackers are still alive and thriving at the fringe of computing. I will offer a few examples of fringe computing that in my mind are the new home of the hackers.

Networks and Security -

We have all heard the news stories of the hackers breaking into this computer or that. Most of the time it is just for the sheer joy of doing it. This is an outlet for hacking, but the interpersonal dynamics have caused some problems. Most computer professionals call these rouge hackers that crack network security 'crackers' to distinguish them from the law abiding technologist hackers who respect the law. Many modern hackers surf the Internet and cruise the web without ever breaking the law.

AI/ Neural Nets/ Voice Recognition -

Looking for a challenge, many hackers have tried their luck mimicking the human brain. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a growing field with few rules and only limited success stories. There is plenty of room for a hacker to make a dramatic impact on the field. The traditional expert systems (a series of rules for the computer to follow to solve a problem) have enjoyed the most success commercially. Neural nets (a simulation of how neurons work in the brain) are now being used in many applications like controlling the settings on an automatic SLR camera. Voice Recognition (talking to your computer) is still mainly in the hacker stage. The systems are just not fast or accurate enough to be used except for the simplest of applications.

Robots -

A logical extension of AI, robotics attempts to mimic an entire human being, physically as well as mentally. For those who still love the scent of burning flux and solder, most of the robotics hardware is still soldered together from scratch. There are even some commercial success stories with primitive robots that deliver inter-office mail, clean the hallways and patrol the warehouse. There is still a lot of work to do before we see anything the caliber of Data from Star Trek the Next Generation, or even the robot from Lost in Space for that mater.

Virtual Reality -

Virtual Reality (VR) is still in its infancy. It is an attempt to mimic all the sensory inputs that a human receives. In this way they can create a world that the human experiences as though it actually existed. You may have seen the VR goggles that show 3D scenes of the virtual world or the VR glove (kind of a 3D mouse with no mousepad) that allows you to navigate your virtual world. VR has been in commercial application for some time in flight simulators for the military and commercial airlines.

Agents -

Agents are not to be confused with 007. They are a type of AI software that acts as a helper to the user. The user delegates tasks to the agent. Tasks as simple as "remind me to buy a gift for my wife", to tasks as complex as "for my wife's birthday, pick out something she'd like and have it delivered to the house". The first task is well within the capabilities of the calendar program that comes free with windows, the last task would be difficult for most humans to satisfy to the demanding user's expectations.

Mark Pendergast

-----------------------------------

We talk a lot about all the software that is available for the modern IBM compatible computer, but I was just thinking that there are an astounding number of hardware add-ons as well. The average computer comes with CPU, memory, disk, a monitor and keyboard. To round out the package you might try some of the following gadgets:

Printers -

There are printers for every situation. The humble daisy wheel, dot matrix, thermal, inkjet, laser, and various color processes. There are very specialized label printers and portable printers. For CAD work a plotter is still the standard.

Pointing devices -

There are a number of ways to tell your computer where to go. It began with the joystick. Later came the mouse, light pen, and trackball. Now even fancier joysticks simulate airplane and auto control panels. The latest innovation is the Virtual Reality glove.

Input devices -

Graphics tablets allow precise input of graphical information. Scanners allow input of graphics and text into the computer. Voice input through a microphone has tremendous capabilities in theory, but in practice it has a way to go. Bar code readers quickly read label information. Data Acquisition systems allow the computer to sample the real world from weather information to pulse rate. Video capture cards allow you to access TV and VCR signals.

Communications -

To have your computer talk to the outside world the standard is a modem. New modems also come with fax capability. For the office with many computers the standard has become ethernet networking. New voice mail/ voice menu/ robocaller cards use your phone to take messages, give out information or call people to sell them insurance. If you need a window on the outside world there are cards that will turn your PC into a radio or TV receiver.

Storage systems -

If you get tired of backing up to 500 floppy disks you can get a tape backup unit. For multi-media you need a CD Rom drive. And if you want to do your own multi-media you can even get a CD Rom writer.

Output systems

To enjoy multi-media entertainment you need a better way to get the information out of the computer. A sound card and speakers can give you excellent quality audio. The display can drive a TV screen or a overhead projector. And if you need realistic 3D vision effects you can get Virtual Reality goggles.

Misc.

To keep you running in a thunderstorm or even without power a uninterruptable power supply (UPS) is indispensable. There are also lots of accessories to dress up you bland computer like monitor frames and custom mousepads.

Now that you have a list of the essential computer peripherals and accessories you can mark the items you want and leave it out for Santa Claus to find. Ho Ho Ho!

Mark Pendergast

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9511

With all the excitement about Windows 95 and its new 32 bit power it seems hard to believe we did anything with DOS and its lowly 8 bit power. I have from time to time put together little DOS batch files to make my life easier. They may not seem like much, but they have saved me hundreds of key strokes and provided me with some interesting information.

The first one is an old favorite, with a new twist. It allows me to back up some very important DOS and Windows files without having to remember them all. I just create a subdirectory called backup at the root level of my hard drive. I then create a directory named for the date, for example \backup\w951101. Then I CD to the new directory and execute INISAVE.BAT. It copies all my interesting files into the directory and I am safe. I usually do this just after I install some new software. You may be asking if I have that backwards, but I don't. I never remember to back up the files before I add something, so if I always back up after the change (which I usually remember to do for some reason) then I am safe for the next install.

The new twist is the inclusion of the two registration databases: reg.dat and ole2.reg. These files hold a ton of information from all the software installs you have done on your machine. If you lose them, or they are damaged by stray cosmic rays, the system has all kinds of problems until you reload all your software. This happened to our secretary at work and we ended up reloading everything from scratch.

INISAVE.BAT:

copy \autoexec.bat .

copy \config.sys .

copy \windows\system.ini .

copy \windows\win.ini .

copy \windows\progman.ini .

copy \windows\reg.dat .

copy \windows\system\ole2.reg .

(Note: the . after the file name. It means copy the file to where I am.)

My next batch file is a little weird. It keeps tabs of how many times I've used my computer, when I used it, and what configuration of my multi-configuration menu that I used. It logs this information to a file every time I boot the computer. Now, you may ask "Why would anyone care when he used his computer?" There are a number of reasons. One is just plain curiosity. It can help you figure out how much you use your computer. You can look back and see when you might have created a file you can't find, so you can look for it by date. It could provide an alibi for you in court, until they figure out it could have been fixed up with any text editor. It can even be used to figure out when your disk drive needs an oil change. (3 months or 3000 boots). It can also tell you when your wife or kids are sneaking into your den and playing computer games.

Enough about the why stuff. The batch file does do some cool stuff to work correctly.

First the file uses the @ prefix to hide from detection. It will not echo any lines to the display during the boot sequence. Next it echoes the CONFIG environmental variable

to the file so I can tell if it was used to run dos games or was popped straight into windows. Note that the echoes all use '>>' to append to the log file rather than '>' to overwrite it.

The coolest thing the batch file does is log the time and date of the boot. The problem of course is that the DOS date and time commands prompt the user for a new value and will not shut up until they get some sort of response. The answer was to use input redirection to give them input from a file, rather than the keyboard input they usually get. The file blank.dat has one blank line in it. By using the '<' to push this blank into the input buffer I was able to get the command to echo the date into the file and continue on without waiting for a response.

LOG.BAT

@echo . >>\backup\boot.log

@echo **** System Boot **** >>\backup\boot.log

@echo Config = %CONFIG% >>\backup\boot.log

@date >>\backup\boot.log <\backup\blank.dat

@time >>\backup\boot.log <\backup\blank.dat

An entry in the boot.log file looks like this:

.

**** System Boot ****

Config = MinWin

Current date is Thu 10-26-1995

Enter new date (mm-dd-yy):

Current time is 5:30:32.55p

Enter new time:

If you have any tips, tricks or programs that make computing simpler I would like to hear from you. Please take the time to write down your ideas and submit them to one of the officers. You will be contributing to the success of the Group, and you can earn some user bucks besides. I am looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Mark Pendergast

------------------------------------

For those of you that collect trivia about computer systems, I found this on a Web page somewhere in cyberspace. I do not run Windows 95 so I can not tell you if it works. I would like someone to try it and report the results to us at the next meeting.

Product: Microsoft Windows 95

Description: Product Team Credits

Submitted By: Eli Smith (esmith@avoice.com)

Procedure:

Right Click on the Desktop.

Select New... then Folder.

Name the folder "and now, the moment you've all been waiting for".

Right Click on the folder and rename it to "we proudly present for your viewing pleasure".

Rename it again to "The Microsoft Windows 95 Product Team!"

Open the folder and the Windows 95 credits will be displayed. The folder will remain around so anytime you want to view the credits again, all you have to do is re-open the folder.

Mark Pendergast

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A year or so ago I gave a presentation on multiple configurations. They make life so much easier when you have conflicting requirements for setups between DOS games and windows applications and even between the need for speed versus convenience.

A new twist that I have begun using to help me manage multiple configurations is the SET statement. Normally the SET is used from autoexec.bat to set environmental variables for programs to use. The new way to use SET is in config.sys to communicate information to the autoexec.bat file.

For my system I have defined two new environmental variables called UTIL and SOUND. In my multiple configurations in the config.sys file I use SET UTIL = ON or SET SOUND = ON to tell the autoexec.bat file if I need the DOS utilities like undelete and doskey run or if I need the sound utilities for my Soundblaster card run.

For a normal multiple configuration I use the environmental variable CONFIG to see what I need to do in autoexec.bat, but sometimes it is a pain to check for many different configs that all need sound. Instead. I can just check to see if SOUND is set to ON. I use the following code sequence to get the job done.

IF NOT "%SOUND%" == "ON" GOTO END_SOUND

:SOUND

REM DO SOUND STUFF

...

:END_SOUND

The same sort of code is used to turn on the dos utilities if I need them, or skip over them if I need the room to run a DOS game like "Reader Rabbit Ready for Letters".

For optional items in the config.sys file itself I use the INCLUDE command. It causes the system to execute code that is not labeled for the configuration I have chosen. By using common blocks, multiple configs, INCLUDE and SET I have been able to configure my system to meet my needs simply by making menu picks at the DOS multi-config menu.

Mark Pendergast

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9512

Now that I own Win95 I got a chance to try the Win95 easter egg that I published last month. It works. The folder opens to a wavy blue background. Some light flute music starts up in the background and the development team’s names (including Bill Gates) float back and forth across the background. each lasts about one second before fading out. The total presentation lasts about ten minutes.

The folder does stay on the desktop, but when I went to drag it to an out of the way corner it smeared the background .BMP image in its path. When I repainted the backdrop it was fixed. Weird! Even weirder the smear effect happens any time you play the credits and then move the icon.

Mark Pendergast

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I finally got my new computer set up to connect to the Prodigy online service. I was able to load the software off the Information Highway CD that came bundled with my new Gateway 2000 system. I had trouble getting the modem (an OEM U.S. Robotics Sportster 28.8 called Telepath II) to talk to the Prodigy phone directory system. I recalled reading about this problem in a previous issue of the Gateway Owners magazine. After hunting through my archives I found the issue with the details of the fix and proceeded to enter the mother of all initialization strings into the Prodigy.ini file.

It went like this:

That string got me logged on to the Prodigy phone number server system. I selected Kokomo as my main choice and then Marion as the alternate. I got connected with no problems.

Once I got connected the Prodigy system downloaded about 10 minutes worth of upgrades that were not on the CD from Gateway. When everything was complete I jumped over to the Internet screen and went to the Usenet news screen to catch up on the Green Bay Packers play-off hopes.

When I got there I found myself subscribed to a dozen news groups I’d never heard of before. My first thought was that someone with a weird taste in news had guessed my password, broken into my account and signed me up for these groups. Quickly I changed my password. I wondered who had added these newsgroups to my account. I jumped to the member help screen to ask what I should do next, who to report this break-in to, and if there had been any system problems that could account for these additions to my newsgroups. The first help guy I got to chat with was just about useless, but he was able to aim me at a different help forum. I asked the next Prodigy guy if the .newsrc file might be corrupt. (This is where all the news setup info is stored, like an ini file) He said I could delete the file and start over. It is called ID.NRC in the Prodigy directory.

All of a sudden it dawned on me, this file is on my computer, not on the Prodigy server. The Gateway 2000 Information Highway CD must have come with an ID.NRC file with all these newsgroups preselected. The Gateway software tester probably tried out a few groups, decided the software all worked correctly, and sent the files off to cut the new CD without deleting his favorite newsgroups. As far as I can tell, everyone who buys a new Gateway 2000 Family Computer and joins Prodigy will get these newsgroups selected. I wonder if Gateway has found this out yet?

If you have had any unusual online experiences, I would like to hear from you. Just jot your story down on a floppy disk and give it to one of the Group officers at the next meeting. It will entertain everyone in the Group and earn you a few user bucks.

Mark Pendergast

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I have been clunking around on Windows 95 for a few weeks now. For the most part I have found few differences between Win95 and Win3.1. The obvious look and feel differences for the most part are just that, look and feel differences. Thinking that I was missing something, I decided to buy a book to see what it was.

I purchased Windows 95 for Dummies. The title seemed to sum up my feelings on allowing Gateway to ship me this turkey without checking it out first. I have also heard good things about the ‘Dummies’ series of books, so I thought I would check one out.

The ‘Dummies’ books live up to their name. Along with insulting anyone who actually knows anything about computers on every page, the book also rehashes the obvious so many ways that you wonder it they don’t just use cut and paste to put the book together.

The book was good in one respect, it showed me that Win95 is really just Win3.2. There is little here that should have me saying ‘Wahoo...’. Yes, I will concede Plug and Play is a big deal, changing screen resolution without shutting down is overdue, and long file names will make life a little easier. On the other hand what’s with all the hype? Long file names should have made DOS 5.0, shutting down to do anything in Windows has always been ridiculous, and as far as I can tell plug and play is mainly a BIOS and hardware issue, not an OS issue.

The Windows 95 for Dummies book did give me some good information. Of the two hundred some pages I actually learned something on about ten of them. There are some good "gotchas" that they pointed out. There was a fail comparison of what changed between Win 3.1 and Win95. There were also some good shortcut key combinations and other tricks that I will probably write up at a later date. On the whole the book was a good novice level introduction to Win95. Its humor, pictures and tags to point out tips, gotchas and techno-babble will make using it as a reference book much easier. On the other hand, if you see Win3.1 as only a little more interesting that a DOS shell program, you will probably be able to use this book to cure insomnia. Look for the Readers Digest condensed version for techies to fill a mere three pages.

Mark Pendergast