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By Cliff Millward, Editor
P.T. Barnum Still Lives!
Ladies and Gentlemen, step this way to see the most marvelous new widget designed especially for your needs - guaranteed to exceed all expectations and make you the most savvy guru on the planet - and it only costs $99.95 if you buy today! (?)
Sound familiar? This approach to selling has been used since the time of that flamboyant huckster P. T. Barnum, (and perhaps earlier) and is still being used today. It exists in junk mail you receive; in unsolicited e-mail; recently in radio and TV ads, and, most assuredly at the World's Greatest Computer Show, COMDEX!
The streets were cleansed of sex hucksters, the weather was beautiful, (the streets, however, were just as torn up as they are here); all the spectacular advertising balloons were in place, but the hype didn't match the substance. Very few "innovative" items were on display. True, some new items were displayed, but the days of honest exuberance seem to have been replaced by contrived deception. This "contrived deception" is, unfortunately, necessary for many companies as they must continually sell product in order to survive. Of what deception are they guilty? They produce insignificant changes and hawk them as impressive upgrades. Actually, they play to the great common human weakness of having to possess the latest and greatest widgets or thingamabobs. Flash and spectacle are their mantra. The modern "snake oil" is entitled "upgrades."
I, however, don't want to sound too negative as many of the presentations are entertaining and enjoyable. They are fun to watch. If, on the other hand, you do not appreciate this type of presentation, you will be disappointed in COMDEX. I like them; it makes going to COMDEX fun, but I try to employ caveat emptor when I am impressed to purchase an item!
COMDEX is changing. The big companies seem to be not as interested as they once were. Perhaps it is the cost of participation. Maybe the controllers of COMDEX are pricing themselves out of the market. Or, perhaps, the companies feel they can spend their money more wisely elsewhere to reach their targeted audience. After all, the attendees of COMDEX are mostly computer geeks; they might want to reach the average computer user, not the experienced devotee.
Other COMDEX Observations
Despite all the hype, I believe that less people attended this year's COMDEX.
For the most part, the aisles were not nearly as crowed as they were last
year. Some may say that this was due to the Sands facilities expansion,
but this conclusion does not include the fact that the Hilton facilities
were only used for meeting rooms. Most of the Hilton convention facilities
were unused.
Also, many attendees left early and toward the middle of the week thus thinning the crowd. A positive result of this fact was that many product presentations played to some empty chairs. This was a bonanza for the remaining attendees as their chances of winning product was thus extremely increased.
Personally, I didn't sit through many or these presentations as it cuts down on exploratory time. When I attend COMDEX I want to discover as much as I can by speaking to as many vendors as possible.
The real "hot sites" of this year's COMDEX were located mostly in the lower level of the Sands. The isles containing vendors displaying Linux were almost impossible to traverse! The interest in Linux was (and is) phenomenal! If this is a harbinger of things to come, Microsoft has something to worry about! In case you didn't know it, Linux is a much more stable and comprehensive operating system than Windows or NT. Also, Corel has just released a version of WordPerfect for Linux which is a FREE download from their website!
Another fact with this edition of Blue Chips we are starting a Linux column. We have contacted the Linux Users Group (SLLUG), and they have agreed to write it. This month's Linux column is written by Dave Otterstrom as an introduction.
The BE operating system site also was rather crowded. The trouble with BE is that, so far, it has few programs that run on it. Perhaps it is a sleeper and will catch on at some later date who knows? We will keep you posted.
Asian vendors were ubiquitous at the Sands lower level, and if any computing innovations were to be found, that was the place to look.
Finally, let me wish everyone a joyous and prosperous New Year! Finé.
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. . . from the President's Porch
by James Alexander
The Porch is full this month. Foremost on the Porch is the official announcement of Silicon Mountain 99 User Group Leadership Conference to be held March 20, at the old WordPerfect facility in Orem, Utah. This is for the officers, leaders, coordinators, teachers, and volunteers who are involved with helping user groups. If that is you please see the SM99UGLC page in this issue for more information.
A new information bomb virus has been found in the `wild' (meaning it is out there waiting for you). December 21, virus news headlines disclosed the existence of a NT (does not affect Novell or Unix) network `smart' virus. This is a first of a kind reporting. The virus is attuned for NT networks doing its harm by acting like a network administrator. When active the virus compresses *.exe files which makes them inoperative; and it encrypts data files so they are locked from use. This larger than normal virus file has been named the Remote Explorer virus. The virus is sophisticated to be active during time when NT network administrators are least likely to be around. The nature of the virus required a person with NT administrative knowledge and programming skills. For more information about the Remote Explorer virus, visit Network Associates Inc. at http://www.nai.com
Mentioning bombs with compression in December, there was this small business consolidation worth $3.8 billion. It appears this may have more compression than the Remote Explorer virus. Parson's Technology started as a small software developer of legal software for wills, cookbooks, and Bible study tools on PCs. They grew until they became successful mass marketing low priced quality software (It's Legal, Family Origins, Daily Journal). Intuit bought Parson's for the marketing ability, and soon Intuit products (Quicken, QuickBooks, & TurboTax) were for sale through Parson's. Soon however, other plans were around, so Intuit (who has a good User Group community relationship) needed to sell Parson's, which was bought by Broderbund (who used to have a User Group program). Now Parson's added new products from Broderbund (Carmen Sandiego, Myst, & Family TreeMaker) and dropped its User Group Program entirely. The Parson's catalogue is starting to grow much larger, when the edutainment software giant, The Learning Company bought Broderbund. Now there are many more products (Reader Rabbit, Compton's Home Library, & Sesame Street) to push in the Parson's marketing programs. But, finally mid-December (here it comes), Mattel (Barbie, Hot Wheels, & Fisher-Price Toys) announces they are acquiring The Learning Company. Maybe, Parson's can now sell a special combo software collection with a collector toy, something like "Professor Barbie Teaches Reading and Personal Finances" or "Big Bird Teaches Hot Wheels Road Safety". So now Mattel will have more games and entertainment and educational products than ever. It will now take hundreds of CD-ROMS to hold all of the software that Parson's could now sell, or maybe a small case of DVD-ROMs.
Now that I've steered the conversation onto storage devices, I would like to finish the porch sweeping by discussing CDs & DVDs. January 1998, Blue Chips was able to review its first DVD product. It was not a movie, but it did have a lot of multimedia and loads of information on how to prepare for MCSE exams. The article was fun to do, and the product was promising. But what was most exciting, was that finally all that fantastic data storage was being developed for PC users. Two to seventeen gigabytes of storage on a single disc is even now very large. Is DVD ready for You? And are You ready for DVD? The answer is Yes if we talk about DVD-ROM, and NO if talking about DVD-RAM. So what is the difference?
The next PC you purchase, you will find a DVD-ROM drive pre-installed. This is not a bad thing. The DVD-ROM will read your CDs and provide very good throughput, and though its seems a selfish use the new DVD movies do look and sound wonderful. (However, DVD-ROM cannot play DiVX movies, those are proprietary. Sadly, there are only a handful of DVD-ROM applications available for PCs. DVD is expensive to develop. You can have a DVD-RAM on your PC, which is the recording version, disks are not too expensive, but the hard disk space needed for recording is very large. Did I mentioned how much these drives cost? Try about $800. Oops, standard format is not yet, so you could be lucky and get the format that becomes the standard or not. From this porch, the cost and risk are too high to consider the DVD-RAM.
DVD-ROM drives costs from $100 to $350 depending if bought with a new PC or doing some kind of upgrade. DVD movies and PC titles require MPEG-2 video decoding. Software decoding works for 266 MHz and faster CPUs, but works your PC's CPU and overall system performance suffers. Hardware decoding is the way to go for performance and allowing great system performance. Most quality upgrade kits have the hardware decoder board included.
It was not that long ago when we spoke up and recommended everyone get a CD-ROM drive, because the 3.5 floppy drive was fast becoming obsolete for installation of the newer software. I'm not yet to that stage on the DVD, but sadly, the day is not far off. Does that mean, we will need 100 gigabyte devices soon?
I do recommend you get some sort of backup device that offers a least 100 megabyte storage. Except for the high-end user, who already knows all of this, most of us rarely have projects with data that exceeds 100 megabytes (for some, 10 megabytes would be too much). Serious consideration should be given to a CD-R, they write over 600 megabytes on a disc that costs under $2, is readable by most PCs, and can double as a CD player and it is (with the tools that come with most CD-Rs) easy to use. Costs are getting under $200, close to the ZIP or LS-120, but much cheaper media.
![[Review Image]](../../images/review.gif)
by William C. May
Manufactured by: Quarterdeck Corporation 13160 Mindanao Way Marina del Ray, CA 90292-9705 Tel: 800-683-6696 Fax: 813-523-2391 www.quarterdeck.com System Requirements: IBM PC or compatible (386 or higher) VGA or higher resolution monitor 350 KB of free DOS RAM 4 MB of RAM ( 16 MB for FAT 32 or NTFS) Bootable system disk 3.5" disk drive Supports: Windows 98, 95, 3.1, NT, OS/2, NetWare, UNIX, DOS
DiskClone Extra Strength Version 1.0, from Quarterdeck, is a very versatile and useful hard disk copy/backup utility. You can clone your hard drive to a Zip, Jaz, or any other drive even over a network! The user interface is graphical and very easy to use and also has all the bells and whistles for those of you who want more control over their copying and backups. Some of the features include high speed copy mode, password protection and file diagnostics/logging during copying.
DiskClone Extra Strength is a great way to clone any drive to a new drive or PC. DiskClone makes an "image" of your hard drive, allowing you to copy the entire contents of one hard drive to any other hard drive. DiskClone images can also be stored on a Zip, Jaz, network or any other drive as a backup solution. With a DiskClone image file of your hard drive, there is no need to reinstall your operating system and other programs when upgrading or restoring a drive. Once the image is restored onto the hard drive, it will have all the old settings, programs and data as the original hard drive. The entire program can run off of a single bootable floppy and that makes it a great tool for crash recovery. You no longer have to reinstall all your operating systems and your backup programs first to just reinstall your backup (that always did seem a little weird). DiskClone uses very little memory and requires no free space on your hard drive if you use the bootable floppy method.
DiskClone Extra Strength is also useful for upgrading your operating system to a new one, such as Windows 98 or NT from Windows 95, etc. You make an image of your hard drive before you start your upgrade and then save the image on another drive (or the same drive if you have the room), so you can return to your original settings if you have any problems.
DiskClone supports all major operating systems including Windows 3.x, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Unix, Linux, Novell, DOS, OS/2 as well as Unix, Novell, NTFS and HPFS partition systems. DiskClone is fully compatible with the new Windows 98 FAT32 file system and can dynamically resize FAT32 partitions, letting you clone a disk from Windows 95 OSR2 or Windows 98 and adjust the partition size without using a separate partitioning program.
As with all the other hard drive utilities, I give the following pearls of wisdom:
DiskClone Extra Strength can get you up and running very quickly and it does it very well. I had zero problems using this product and I learned a lot about different partitioning schemes from reading the manual. This program compares to Drive Image from PowerQuest in its capabilities. DiskClone Extra Strength is definitely a keeper.
Special COMDEX Report
Reported by James Alexander
One of the great opportunities we have at COMDEX, is to participate in the APCUG meetings. APCUG participation costs each person who attends, but because of early bird deadlines our personal cost can be under $75. There are several national vendors who support the APCUG activities, which helps us keep our cost down. The events are worth more than we pay. See some of the other messages in this issue to find out about the APCUG events www.apcug.org
Virtually everyone signed up for APCUG, had five special dinners where, a major company's CEO or President or User Group Program manager addressed us. In some cases, we were allowed to ask questions. Our speakers included: Paul Celen, COO-Personal Computing Products of the Consumer Electronics Division-Philips International; Bill Bennett, President-PowerQuest Corp. (former Pres of Folio Corp.); Jeff Papows, CEO/President-Lotus Corp.; Bill Gates, CEO-Microsoft Corp.; Scott Cook, CEO-Intuit Corp.; Dr. Michael Cowpland, Pres/CEO-Corel Corp.; Del Yocam, CEO-Inprise Corp. (formerly Borland); and Gordon Eubanks, Pres/CEO-Symantec Corp. The following highlights came from my notes, which are better than last month's photo would suggest.
Philips Free Speech 98 was tested and readied for market through the use of User Groups for Beta-testing. Paul Celen, COO-Personal Computing Products of the Consumer Electronics Division-Philips International told the APCUG audience that user groups were important to the Dutch company's successful entrance to the US PC market. Because of this success, Philips computing Division is committed to future association with User Groups. Free Speech 98, is a product developed from combining many of Philips' core technologies especially those centered on voice recognition and call management products. Free Speech 98 provides dictation and playback of speech, as well as control of multimedia elements on the PC desktop.
One of those testers, (who had downloaded the product and had tried it out), is an original user group member - Bill Gates. In a discussion about the product, Mr. Gates was overheard to say that he had been trying out the product during the time user groups were Beta-testing the FreeSpeech98. I was impressed by the concept of Bill Gates trying out products (even by other companies) in order to stay informed and in touch with the computer world at large.
There are product review articles and December's general meeting presentation of Partition Magic to tell you about the PowerQuest products. We enjoyed similar presentations during APCUG. But PowerQuest also had another gem for us, their President Bill Bennett. Mr. Bennett explained when he started the job, CEO/Founder Eric Ruff made sure Mr. Bennett was thoroughly briefed on the mission and goals of PowerQuest. I was impressed with the points that were made. Number one for the APCUG crowd was - User Groups are a part of PowerQuest's Marketing & Business Plan - a Business Channel with provable results.
PowerQuest suggests these ideas as a model for success: Be a Leader in your Industry; Produce Heroic Products/Services; Smoke the Competition; Your Business Future is in the Front-lines; Have a Scrappy Attitude; Never Let Reality Get in the Way of Success; and Be responsible for Innovative Solutions for Changing Environments. PowerQuest has received recognition as being one of the best start-up businesses in the Industry and in the state of Utah. Maybe these ideals work.
Despite the early breakfast and rushing about, Lotus's Jeff Papows presented an overview of how much change has occurred. In the 70's there was Big Iron; the 80's gave us the front office in the form of spreadsheets and word processing; and the 90's have given us the Virtual Office which allows us to have influence on the internal operations from external locales (tele-commuting, e-commerce, collaboration, etc.). The virtual office is best shown by the volume of e-mail = 2.7 trillion pieces annually. Another measure is the growth from no URLs in 1995 to about 8 billion expected by the year 2002.
Mr. Papows described how there have been major changes in Information Technologies due to the economies of scale and the convergence of business and technology. CEOs today must be technologically smart and aware of how it works. The major challenges for all of us are: 1. Technology conflicting with Human limits; 2. Failed Standards of the past and present keeping technology from going forward; 3. Lack of demand by the public or the industry for corrections or improvements; and 4. Government intervention causing more confusion rather than solutions.
Bill Gates and Microsoft hosted a User Group Leaders only dinner reception, where we saw the Office 2000 product demonstrated AND an address with a Q&A after with Bill Gates. It was not possible to keep up with my note-taking skills, but the evening was exceptional for insights about the future. (Note: No discussion of the lawsuits) Here are some of the more interesting comments. The PC today is more affordable with even more power than ever before. The industry is going faster than ever in every area (PC speeds, storage, portable units, etc.).
Microsoft's theme for future products is `Bring extra power while increasing the simplicity'. The goal is to provide more functionality for the individual user, while reducing the number of commands or steps to get the functions. This concept is planned for all applications from Microsoft. Mr. Gates felt that a significant challenge comes from getting everyone connected to the Internet. The common person lacks high-speed connection. TV cable is a possibility, but it will take three years to connect a few million. The Digital will challenge and even reshape the nature of colleges as vehicles for information delivery.
PCs used to be hard to use, and then everyone needed a user group. Over time end user friendliness has improved, but the profit margins for manufacturers have gone down. With this change user groups should see more variety in their membership.
Mr.& Mrs. Gates have endeavored to share, and to attempt to increase peoples' connection to the wide world. One effort is the establishment of a foundation chartered to provide PCs to every library in North America. Their work has started with some of the poorest areas of the US.
Several Q&A issues that were of special note:
Intuit's Scott Cook offered his insights about where the technology is taking us. PCs like cars are having `second order' effects. Some of the auto's `second order' effects are: highways, congestion, shopping malls, leasing, etc. When autos were first promoted, autos were going to eliminate pollution (think horse manure on roadways). One form of pollution was eliminated, but replaced by a `second order' effect called `smog'.
PCs' `second order' effects include on-line `chat' communities (think "You've Got Mail"), Internet culture, e-commerce, etc. One fear about e-commerce was that discount Brokerages would take over from the full service Brokerages. In fact, full brokerage houses have more volume than the discounts. What makes the difference? It is the quality and value for the services provided that draw people more than pure price difference. Then the Intuit teams showed the new and exciting products for the season. The Quicken information will be at our January 13 general meeting.
Dr. Michael Cowpland made it clear that Corel is staying active for most PC users. Corel products will be on the three major platforms: Windows, Linux, and Macintosh. There is a fourth platform which is based on the other three - J-Bridge. We were treated to a preview of Corel WordPerfect version 9 which increases the involvement of Dragon speech engine and introduces even more Internet capability. Two buzz terms to watch for with WordPerfect are: Trellix technology and "Net Docs". Both of these will enhance WordPerfect Internet publishing and interaction. Quattro Pro version 9 will wow us with a million row capability. Now that is a large spreadsheet. Good news for those with budget restraints, the concurrent and personal use licensing will continue as it has been in the past. CorelDraw will feature a new `live effect', which provides the ability to select any previous step and change only it.
Inprise (formerly Borland) presented a video based loosely upon a Search for the Holy Grail (starring of course, most of the management and leaders of Inprise). It takes special qualities to dress up in fancy armor and fight dragons and magicians. In the video it traced the history of acquisitions of 1996 Open Environments Corporation and 1998 Visigenics Corporation. These companies and their products (Entera, AppCenter, VisiBroke, & VisiBroker ITS) have changed the nature of the company so they felt the need to reflect a name of a newly emerging mix of companies and products, thus Inprise. Okay I know it sounds hokey, but really it was done well and was fun. Originally computers were centric or monolithic, meaning there was a central processor plus lots of satellite inquiry stations. Then there was the second wave or as is referred to today Client Server. Now a third wave or Multi-tier Distributed Applications are emerging, and Inprise with its products is ready to meet these new third wave architecture demands.
©Symantec's Gordon Eubanks was a special treat for my self. By good fortune, I was seated at the table where Mr. Eubanks ate. I was able to listen in and be involved, as Mr. Eubanks discussed the COMDEX show with Symantec executives and User Groups. Some comments are included.
Mr. Eubanks critiqued the Symantec booth and advertising. He praised elements that pleased him and made suggestions to his executives about how he felt it could be better next year. This was different from Bill Gates, who had demonstrated a minute knowledge of the Microsoft booths and personnel before COMDEX had started. Mr. Eubanks was involved, but allowed his staff to make and complete their jobs without his interfering. Like Mr. Gates, Gordon Eubanks demonstrated knowledge of the current trends in the PC industry, while acknowledging that he enjoys using the PC his way.
Giving tribute to user groups, Gordon Eubanks stated "you (User Group leaders) are the volunteer contributors to the industry." This was not just apple polishing, at the table he had asked Dan Hanson, APCUG President, and myself what was happening with user groups locally. In the course of that question, he asked if members of our UGs were still testing software for PC vendors. He was pleased to hear about it, commenting that some of the best feed back comes from the user groups. At one point Mr. Eubanks mentioned how there were features in older products that he continued to use, because the feature was missing from the newer version. In a spot survey of the APCUG people there, 50% said they had used WordStar (an early word processor). PCs are more powerful than ever. There are two major issues with PCs today: Bandwidth and Storage Capacity.
In the 1840's, mail took months to be delivered, today, e-mail occurs in seconds. The world is in the process of moving from the analog wiring to digitally wired packet switched networking. The ultimate integration will come when the bathroom scale is wired to the refrigerator, so that when the weight gets too high, the food will be restricted. Another issue, English is becoming universal among PC users, which contributes to a global integration of the PC industry.
Not many years ago, a 3K permanent storage device weighed 60 lbs. Soon, terrabyte hard drives will be available in very light-weight devices for notebooks.
As mentioned last month, Mr. Eubanks felt there was an excess of bad information about the year 2000. Again the best advise is to have a good data backup and a current anti-virus. Small businesses need to be the most alert to the Y2K problems, as they do not have on-staff experts or specialists who can help them overcome the problems.
Regarding Symantec's recent acquisition of Quarterdeck, Mr. Eubanks said they were still formulating their plans. But it was sad to see the loss of Quarterdeck's independence. Quarterdeck had been a innovator with many fine products. Symantec did not want to see those products go to another company.
These CEOs offered much, and they gave this to the User Group community. As much as we are different, it was fun to see the same differences between these CEOs. The one unifying theme for all of us is the promotion and understanding of personal computing.
by Erma Wheeler
James Alexander called the meeting to order and announced that Computer
Depot was giving two Internet access certificates for the drawing.
He then updated us on Silicon Mountain, the Blue Chips-sponsored event which will take place March 20, 1999 in Orem. We need many members to volunteer their help to see us through that project.
Silicon Mountain is a huge undertaking as it will be an event for all National user groups to attend. John Witzel is heading up the registration. Gene Barlow from PowerQuest is guiding us through the nuts and bolts of this event and was thanked for his valuable help.
Dave Otterstrom then took the floor and talked about special user group discounts: Inside Windows 98, a video with helps for using Windows 98 and a client server version of Delphi 4. We also have an opportunity to get refill cartridges for ink jet printers for a discount.
Dave then talked about the magazine SIG will start on January 30. Cliff will demonstrate how he puts the Blue Chips Magazine together.
After Open Access time Rick Gregory talked about the GenTech Conference for January. This will be their first meeting ever held in Utah.
Gene Barlow then took center stage and told us a few things about PowerQuest,
our neighbor from Orem.
PartitionMagic 4.0 is now out. It works in Windows 95/98, OS/2, DOS, Linux and NT. It now accesses Hard Drives up to 20 Gig. "Wizards" are the new tools to make things easier to accomplish.
Among other things, PartitionMagic can reclaim wasted disk space and resize clusters. In order to accomplish some of its actions, PM builds a DOS batch file that is executed after you give it the go ahead. In other words, it tells you specifically what it will do, but does not execute until you "push the button."
BootMagic is part of the package and allows you to boot more than one operating system.
DriveMapper is another handy utility for reassigning drive letters following the addition or removal of a drive.
DriveImage is an enhanced back-up program which easily allows you to back up a portion, or the full hard drive. You can quickly copy from one hard drive to another. It makes cloning hard drives much easier.
Lost and Found is a new product that finds files on damaged drives and restores them. It will also recover data after formatting if you have not overwritten it. Gene offered these products at a special discount. His wife Linda helped him by selling the products at a table in the hallway.
In
the drawing PartitonMagic 4.0 and a DriveImage 2.0 were won by two lucky
members.
Also, the Internet service from Computer Depot, was given away.
The meeting ended with a visit from Santa Claus. He read a list of those who have volunteered during the year. Each was honored and got to choose an item from a variety or products accumulated by the club throughout the year.
Members wished each other Holiday Greetings as they filed out the door.
by William C. May
Manufactured by: PowerQuest Corporation PO Box 1911 Orem, Utah 84059-1911 Tel: 800-800-4880 Fax: 801-226-8941 www.powerquest.com System Requirements (for CD-ROM Version): 386SX or above Windows 95, Windows 3.1, OS/2.1 or above, DOS 5.0 or above 8MB RAM (16MB required for FAT32 or NTFS) CD-ROM Drive Any Speed Any Speed 3.5 Disk Drive 8MB HardDisk Free Space VGA SuperVGA Mouse
DriveCopy Version 2.0, by PowerQuest, is another fine product in their line of hard drive utilities. DriveCopy is essentially a "lite" version of PowerQuest's Drive Image Version 2 hard drive utility (see the review for Drive Image Version 2 in the September, 1998 issue of Blue Chips Magazine or see it on the web at www.ucs.org). DriveCopy is designed to copy hard drive information from one hard drive to another hard drive. Upgrading to a new hard drive usually means hours of backing up your hard drive to floppy disks (just kill me now), tape drives, etc.; then you spend many more hours reinstalling everything to your new hard drive AND IF it all goes well, you could be looking at a days worth of mind numbing work! With DriveCopy, a few simple steps are all that are needed to move everything from your old hard drive to your new one without losing a single setting or byte of data. No more data loss, no more headaches, no more sciatica and tennis elbow from sitting in a chair all day just to reinstall all your programs from all your floppies and CD-ROMs.
DriveCopy supports every major operating system; DOS, Window 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 3.1 and OS/2. Linux, Netware and Unix partitions can also be copied but are not supported by PowerQuest. DriveCopy can also be used with SCSI drives, some removable drives and drives that use a software overlay such as Disk Manager.
Although the DriveCopy program itself is a DOS program, it handles all the long file names and extended attributes of the various OS's perfectly. DriveCopy actually boots up and runs off of a 3.5" floppy disk and is never installed on the hard drive. This ensures that no files from the drive being copied are in use. Another benefit of using DriveCopy is in the fact that the original files on the original hard drive are not being overwritten or deleted and this ensures that your data will be safe in case your power goes out or some other hardware failure occurs. DriveCopy can copy your entire hard drive including multiple partitions to a larger drive, a same size drive or a smaller drive. There are a few limitations on copying to a smaller drive however. The new drive must have the same amount of room as the original partition. The partition resizing feature of DriveCopy takes place after the copying is done, not before, therefore the smallest size the new hard drive can be is the size of the partition that is being copied.
Words of Wisdom: As in all hard drive utilities, especially formatting utilities, READ THE BOOK FIRST. Although DriveCopy is as close to a no-brainer program as you can get, there are ways you can waste time in copying your hard drive. If you do not understand hard drive partitioning, formatting, etc. just read the manual. A little planning can go along way here! PowerQuest has spent a lot of time putting together an informative and easy to read manual that can walk you through almost any copying scenario (in fact the book has a bunch of partitioning scenario examples in it). They also have a very good database of jumper settings for various hard drives on their web site which can be launched from the CD during installation. Make sure you understand active partitions, extended partitions, logical partitions and formatting (it is all in the book) before using the program, it will save you time and you will feel much more confident about the whole process. The biggest "mistake" I see people making with DriveCopy is in copying to a drive larger than 2.1 gigabytes and when the process is done they don't see the whole drive. This is because FAT16 is limited to 2.1 gigs of space in any one large partition. To use more of your new large drive you need to turn the rest of the drive into an extended partition or enable FAT32 formatting on the new drive (if you have that capability). If you do not already have the capability of running FAT32 drives then DriveCopy will not give you the capability and just because a program can change the format of a drive to FAT32 (such as PowerQuest's Drive Image program) it does not mean that your operating system can then read FAT32 drives! FAT32 is only readable by Windows 95 OSR2 and Windows 98. Windows NT and any other operating systems cannot see FAT32 formatted drives. If you want the most compatible formatting then stick with FAT16.
DriveCopy is great for duplicating new hard drives and saving you a lot of time and headaches. If you need more control and options, such as changing formatting while copying, etc., then go with Drive Image.
by Welden Andersen
![[Meeting Memoranda Image]](../../images/meetingm.gif)
Manufacturer:
Omega Research, Inc.
8700 W. Flagler Street Suite 250
Miami, FL 33174
800.422.8587
Sales@omegaresearch.com
800.556.2022
Service@omegaresearch.com
www.omegaresearch.com
$395 Retail
System Requirements:
PC with 486-66Mhz, Min - (Pentium recommended)
Windows 3.11,
4Mb RAM Min - 8Mb Recommended
Windows 95, 98, or NT 3.5/4.0
8Mb RAM Min - 16Mb Recommended
35-50 Mb Hard Disk to install - Data storage requirements depend
on personal usage and symbol tracking
Monitor should be as big as possible to display multiple Charts
Graphics card, Mouse, CD, Sound card for advisors on CD
Modem (Faster the better for daily updates of your data downloads
As the stock market continues to flow up and down, most of us may be concerned about the future value of our own personal savings or retirement funds. The Internet has become a great source of information. Up until now, only financial institutions and brokers have been privy to the reasons affecting fast-paced changes in stock prices. Therefore a broker was relied on and needed to make the decision to buy or sell a particular stock for you. But with the opening of Electronic Trading on the Internet, YOU and I can now act on the information we find to make an intelligent trade that would bypass the broker and his or her fees and commissions. Internet on-line trades can now be made for only $8.00 per basic trade, instead of a commission that represents a percentage of the dollar amount of the trade.
Having the right information is only part of the equation in making an on-line trade. Tracking the numerous US Stock, Canadian Stock, Bonds, Mutual Funds, Indexes, Futures etc. are why you need a high powered charting software. To quote from their web site: "SuperCharts is Omega Research's technical analysis charting product and is available in both real-time and end-of-day versions. SuperCharts has a built-in library of more than 80 popular technical indicators and 15 drawing tools that highlight significant market patterns. SuperCharts provides the investor with sophisticated charting and technical analysis capabilities, including the ability to draw trend lines, identify chart patterns and chart historical fundamental data. SuperCharts utilizes the power of the personal computer to enable investors to historically test the profitability of their own investment and trading strategies and then computer-automate those strategies to generate real-time buy and sell signals."
The huge box contained a SuperCharts Users manual, a QuickEditor manual, and a Down Loader manual, 3 Videos: Getting started, from the President of the Company, (1 hr 23 min) and Mastering EasyLanguage part 1 & 2, (2hr 50 min) and CD's for the program and a 25 year historical database of US Stock, Canadian Stock, Mutual fund, Index and Futures data. Good software is easy to recognize, and this program has all the earmarks of thorough programmers and a focused company addressing quality and support. Having won awards and top honors since the mid 1990's, SuperCharts continues to be the world's leading charting software. (By the time you read this review, version 5.0 will be available)
Loading the software was a breeze. After starting SuperCharts for the first time, a Tutorial screen opens with a step-by-step introduction to building your own Workspace. (You can open this tutorial anytime from the Help Menu) Within the workspace you select the symbols (from the US Stock, Canadian Stock, Mutual Funds, Indexes, Futures etc.) that you want to track. Once the symbol is loaded, you can assign up 80 built-in technical indicators. Head out to the web site (http://www.omeg aresearch.com/html/easylanguage_downloads.html) for free downloads of studies and systems that were developed by the EasyLanguage Department and Omega Research users. You can use them to help you create your own EasyLanguage analysis techniques.
You have complete flexibility and control over the screen layouts, the number of symbols displayed and the indicators overlaid on each symbol. The built-in indicators have alerts that can monitor symbol changes and notify you when certain criteria are reached. There is an Expert Indicator Help file to explain to you what an indicator is saying for a specific point in time and why. Whether you are a first timer or not, the Expert can give you another perspective on what is happening to your symbol as the data changes. With PaintBar and ShowMe Studies, you can highlight significant chart patterns. Color codes you select will light when a condition is met. Makes it easy to spot trends that have that pattern. A collection of over 60 ShowMe's can help you highlight profit-making opportunities.
The QuickEditor is used in writing custom Analysis techniques and functions. These include:
Having lots of symbols to track could make analysis cumbersome if you didn't have ChartScan to sift through it all and notify you visually or audibly of any buy/sell, moving average crossovers, special chart patterns or trendline breakouts. Use the System Tester to give you a Performance Summary report showing net profit, largest drawdown, winners and losers. Here is the information you'll need to test the viability of your personal trading strategy and systems. Try some ideas and scenarios with the What-if System Optimization reports. These reports can help you fine tune your trading strategies.
Down Loader automatically collects your end-of-day price data so that you stay right up-to-date with your symbol information that you want to follow. Dial Data or Telescan deliver the data through the built-in scheduler. Just set the time. If you use other sources of data, be assured that you can import all the popular data formats including AIQ, ASCII, CompuTrac, CSI, KR Final Markets, Mega-Tech, MetaStock, Omega Down Loader, Omega Tick, TeleChart 2000 and Tick Data. Dial Data supplies the included massive CD database in a format that is compatible with the Down Loader on-line data. You now have any symbol with a 25-year history right up to and including the latest download. Not only can you use all the built-in power of this program, but because of the open platform design, over 150 independent developers have developed software products for the Omega Research Platform. More power to truly be an informed investor.
If you have the desire to maximize your on-line investing, you'll want to upgrade to the $1,200 version of SuperCharts Real-Time. With real-time input you can track, evaluate and make your trades on an immediate basis. With any software program, these could be very profitable or disastrous trades. Your mileage may vary. As with any financial market trade, you could loose some or all of your investment. Without reliable information, smart strategies and the software to track the progress of a stock, you are gambling! Might as well head to Wendover or Las Vegas, have a great time and blow the money there OmegaResearch has several other high level products including TradeStation, their $2,400 flagship investment tool.
Your greed, paranoia, risk and stress factors will determine how you proceed, how much you invest and what you use to lower the pressures and increase the profitability of on-line trading. Either way, based on my experience, OmegaResearch SuperCharts 4.0 End-of-Day delivers excellent value and hand holding to get you where you want to go as you begin on-line trading.
by William C. May
Manufactured by: Adaptec, Inc. 691 South Milpitas Blvd. Milpitas, California 95035 Tel: 408.945.8600 Fax: 408.262.253 www.adaptec.com System Requirements Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows NT 4.0 17 MB free hard disk space Supported: CD-Recordable (CD-R) or CD Rewritable (CD-RW) drive Recordable (CD-R) or Rewritable (CD-RW) CDs Optional: (1) sound card (16bit or better) and analog source (LP, cassette, DAT tape, or CD) attached to stereo receiver with line-out capabilities for CD Spin Doctor.
Easy CD Creator Deluxe version 3.0, from Adaptec, Inc., contains an assortment of programs that allow you to produce and copy various types of CD related material. The main program, Easy CD Creator, can copy and produce data, audio and mixed media CD's with an easy to use interface. Easy CD Creator has a quick copy utility that copies CD's without much user intervention and it also has a sophisticated interface that has all kinds of bells and whistles you can use to create your CD's in various formats. The main program, which supports all basic recording modes plus the more exotic types such as CD Extra, bootable CDs, and Video CD, can operate in manual mode or "wizard" mode which will walk you through the process step by step. You can copy existing data CD's, program CD's, music CD's and if you have a CD rewriter you can use the same CD over and over. The program has many safeguards built in to stop you from making an useless CD (which is very easy to do) such as the "verify layout" option that can check your CD layout and tell you if it is going to work or not. Easy CD Creator can also be used to make bootable CD-ROM's. This can be very useful is you have a CD-ROM and computer that is capable of booting up from a CD. Another program included in the package is called CD Spin Doctor which allows you to record and process audio from analog sources (such as records and cassette tapes) and put those analog signals into a digital format on a CD (this is very cool if you want to preserve your LP or cassette tape collection). Easy CD Creator also has a nifty CD label and jewel cover printing utility for making your own layouts for you CD's and jewel cases.
Each CD-R or CD-RW can hold 640 megabytes of information if you copy the CD all at once. If you do multiple copies until the CD is full (called multiple sessions) you lose approximately 15 megabytes of storage per copy session (it is lost to partition table information, etc.). CD-R and CD-RW are both very good for backing up and CD copying but with CD-R if the process is interrupted and done incorrectly the CD-R is toast (CD-R media is write once, read many and CD-RW media is write many and read many). There is no saving CD-R media or reusing it. Even if you wrote only 5 megs of info to the disk and something goes amiss during writing, the disk is useless. A year ago wasting disk was more of an issue as the cost of CD-R media was much higher than it is now, but it is still very irritating to lose a CD after waiting for an hour or so for it to copy. Because of this great irritation I went to the newer CD-RW machines and I use the CD-RW rewritable media to test out my CD copies before I commit to using a CD-R. If I mess up the CD-RW I just erase it and start over. This does require me doing most CD copies twice but my CD disaster pile has stopped growing.
The Good: Easy to use drag and drop interface. Easy to use wizards for most operations. Verification tools to check my work. Won't let me try to copy too much data to too little space on the CD. Will copy almost any CD. Can chose different formats to target the operating systems that will be reading the CD's. Has built in diagnostic tests to test your CD burner setup before actually copying any CD's. Works with almost every CD burner out there.
The Pearls of Wisdom: Read the manual first. Be prepared to mess up five to ten CD-R's before you learn what not to do. If you have trouble getting through a session without getting errors, try coping the entire CD that you are trying to duplicate to your hard drive and copy it from there instead of from CD to CD recorder. Do not "close out" CD's (make it impossible to write more data to it later) unless you are positive you are done writing to it. Remember that files with the same names will replace each other on the CD if you are doing multiple copying sessions (be sure you want this to happen). Putting your files in directories on your CD and not just in the root directory will minimize unintentional file overwrites. Always "import" previous sessions or they will "disappear" after adding new files. Get a CD-RW if you can and play with the CD-RW's first (you can recover from mistakes with these babies).
I have tried several CD burning programs but Easy CD Creator is the easiest and most reliable I have used so far. I haven't used the CD Spin Doctor so I can't tell you if it is any good from personal experience but other reviewers have very good things to say about it. I have created about 30 data CD's, copied 25 music CD's, and copied a dozen CD programs with a only a few disasters that were mostly my fault. Most of my problems are probably related to my errors and the drive compatibility with my computer system not Easy CD Creator. Version 3.5 is out now and as I understand it the core program (Easy CD Creator) is basically untouched but the CD Spin Doctor program has been significantly altered and a new program that handles photos and video is now included (you can make your own photo CD's). If you want to just do data CD's version 3.0 is just fine. If you want photo an video capabilities thrown in then get version 3.5 (owners of version 3.0 can get a free upgrade to 3.5 also).
Copying CD's is fun and can save much more reliably than magnetic media can. Happy CD burning....
All User Group or Special Interest Group Leaders, Coordinators and Volunteers
I want to invite you to attend the:
Silicon Mountain Computer Users Leadership
Conference
Orem Utah, Saturday March 20, 1999.
Located on the former WordPerfect Campus
What's in it for you?
What do you do? Contact us for more information or register early. If you do not want to receive further information, please e-mail a request to be removed from our mailing list, it will be handled personally.
What is your cost to Register? $25 {if post marked by Feb 1}, $40 {posted Feb 2 to Mar 5}, or $50 {Mar 6 to the event (if space is available). Registration forms available by request from e-mail silicon.form@ucs.org or snail-mail SILICON MTN99, PO BOX 510811, SALT LAKE CITY UT 84151-0811, or from the Utah Computer Society WEB site www.ucs.org/siliconmtn.html .
What are all the Costs? Registration (see above), transportation to the event and lodgings. Transportation may be reduced by charter if there are sufficient number of User Group people coming from your area. (Denver area has mentioned having a charter bus.) Utah still has snow skiing during March, and ski package trips may also be available. (Get a peek at some of the 2002 Winter Olympic sites)
Lodging is available in the area in prices ranging from economical to ritzy. We suggest using Utah's Travel Council site http://www.utah.com/ for over 150 locations within a 40 mile radius of Orem.
We will (as we obtain information) post on our WEB site and by e-mail any special travel or lodging deals we find.
What makes up the Silicon Mountain Group
Computer user groups in Utah. The host user group is the Utah Blue Chips PC User Group of Salt Lake City which is part of the Utah Computer Society, Inc. (www.ucs.org). UCS is a 501 (c)(3) non profit educational organization, and a charter member of APCUG (www.apcug.org). [Association of Personal Computer User Groups is a cooperative effort of User Groups working to help each other and improve the UG community.] APCUG Region VI user groups members are supporting/sponsoring the Silicon Mountain Conference. UCS is a member of UITA (www.uita.org). Utah Information Technology Association is an industry association promoting the growth of technology in the state of Utah. There are over 2500 members of UITA. UITA is coordinating UITA members involved in the conference
by Dave Otterstrom
This is what I hope, to be the first of many controversial columns we want to install in the magazine. Cliff has the Baton Bleu, James has the President's Porch, Preston has NewsBytes, Weldon Internet Insights, John Ogilvie Law++; they all have columns. We learned at the APCUG meetings, other peoples opinions were interesting things to have in the magazine. So I'm going to try out pages from other groups.
At COMDEX I made a point of finding the section where Linux was stationed. When we found it I went from booth to booth, looking for people to contribute to a column on an occasional basis. The results were pretty encouraging. I got about three gurus who said they would give me an article once in a while.
I figure if I can get someone from the local Linux users group to write a page for in between times, it should work out. Just think, our own tekno nerd page, hosted by the Utah Computer Society and written by people like Mark Bolzern, Scott Stone, and other important people you've probably never heard of, as well as the guys from the local Linux group. Who knows? Maybe someday, one of them will become famous. We could start the career of a great technical writer with our magazine.
I still haven't created a name for the column. I think I'll ask at the Linux meeting for their input. After all it's about the product they're most interested in.
If the column works out I think I'll go find all twelve dedicated local Mac users and have them write a column.
In leaving I want to tell you about the Penguin Logo on the top of the page. It's associated with the Linux kernel. There's some good stories about it. Here's one.
As the legend goes, the people decided that the Linux kernel needed a logo. Linus Torvalds suggested that a penguin might be appropriate; Linus has admired penguins ever since one had the nerve to attack and bite him on a visit to Antarctica, where he was helping the research station to use Linux for data collection. A logo contest was held and Larry Ewing's drawing "Tux" won the contest. Tux quickly became the icon for the entire Linux community to rally around.
Here's hoping this works out and becomes one of the things the membership enjoys reading
Later -- Dave Otterstrom
![[Software Review Image]](../../images/software.gif)
By Donna Nendell, Review Program Manager and Don Nendell, Editor
To sign up to review an article, call Donna Nendell at 565-9594
or E-mail me at donna.nendell@aros.net
.
Asteroids from ActiVison Classic Arcade Action. The biggest arcade hit in history hits again in earth shattering 3D! Mind altering graphics, innovative new features and explosive special effects transform the arcade classic into the ultimate intergalactic blastfest. Revisit the classic fire-shield-thrust gameplay now in next generation 3D graphics! Added enemies, advanced weapons and explosive effects intensify the action. Explosives Weapons Arsenal . Equip one of four asteroid blasting ships with Smart Bombs, Ramming Shields, Gun Satellites, and other special weapons.
Barrage by ActiVison 3-D accelerator card required. Take 3-D gaming to a startling new place. Rocket through the sky full throttle in a high-tech hovercraft, unloading endless rounds at enemy jet fighters and swarming helicopters. Blast away at tanks, subs and missile launchers, swerving between canyon walls and diving underwater to avoid hostile fire. It's a brutal race against time as you run cutthroat recon missions, hunt for portals and rack up kills. May the fastest gun win.
Big Game Hunter II from HeadGames HeadGames and Cabela's have teamed up once again to bring you Big Game Hunter II, the highly anticipated sequel to the smash hit, Big Game Hunter. Experience the virtual hunt of a lifetime in Alberta, Colorado, New Mexico & The African Plains. With new weapons, the latest Cabela's gear & tons of animals, you'll experience the life-action video, sound effects & weather conditions so real they put you right in the middle of the wilderness. Take your hunting skills to the next level with the nonstop action & realism of Big Game Hunter II, the best virtual hunting game ever!
Chaos Island from Microsoft {www.microsoft.com} - Pack your gear, take a deep breath, and get ready for total chaos! Evil hunters are trying to take over The Lost World, and it's up to you to stop them before time runs out. To do it, you'll have to collect eggs and raise an army of fighting dinosaurs. But watch your back! Hungry dinos are loose on the island, and the hunters are armed to the teeth and in command of a ferocious prehistoric army! Have courage, have guts, but most of all have a plan of attack! The Strategy Game you can really Sink your Teeth into.
Crash Defender Deluxe from QuarterDeck The most reliable protection against crashes and screen freezes. It's not a matter of "if". It's a matter of "when". And when disaster does strike, the real question will be ...are you protected against crippling crashes and screen freezes? And, more importantly, is your data protected? With Crash Defender Deluxe, you can work (and play) with the confidence of knowing that the Best Windows crash protection available is safeguarding you and your data against productivity-killing crashes and screen freezes. Crash Defender Deluxe is the ONLY crash protection solution for Windows 95/98 and Windows NT designed to automatically intercept and fix crashes and screen freezes BEFORE they cause a loss of data.
Daily Journal V3.0 from Parsons Technology Memories, accomplishments, thoughts record them all! Don't let another thought, event or achievement go unrecorded. Collect your thoughts...sit and think...and then record it all with Daily Journal 3.0 for Windows. There's simply no better way than Daily Journal to keep a written record of the important events in your business or personal life. Just enter your thoughts and arrange them by topic as they apply to your job, family and more. You can easily import, transfer and export text files to make writing easier. And every word you type is automatically indexed for quick retrieval! A full screen editor and calendar lets you enter and edit information for any day of the year.
DeskLink by Traveling Software {www.travsoft.com} - Access and Control Your Office PC From Home. Getting more work done used to mean spending more time at the office. Not anymore. Remote DeskLink for Windows® 95 lets you leave the office when you want to and finish up your work from home. It's the easiest way yet to connect to your office PC from your home or other location at a price that puts remote control within reach of anyone with a modem. This full featured remote control solution gives you the freedom and flexibility to work whenever and wherever it's convenient for you. Run programs on your office PC just as if you were sitting at your desk. Read and send e-mail. Access databases. Update documents. Work on presentations. Chat on-line with others on the office network. And more. As Easy As Being There Remote DeskLink takes advantage of the ease-of-use features of Windows 95 to make remote computing as simple as working at the office. ToolTips and our award-winning Quick Steps offer assistance along the way: Remote DeskLink uses disk caching, color depth control and bitmap filtering to provide the fastest, most reliable performance available anywhere.
Duck Hunter Pro from ActiVison The Hunt Is On! Grab your camo, shotgun and shells. Ducks Unlimited and HeadGames have teamed up to bring you the most realistic waterfowl hunting experience ever, Duck Hunter Pro. Select from 16 unique locations, choose your shotgun, lay out your decoys and you're off to hunt over 10 species of ducks & geese in the marshes, lakes and fields of Duck Hunter Pro.
Extreme PaintBrawl from HeadGames Track and Splat your opponents online with over 8 Paintball markers in more than 5 "eXtreeme" Paintball fields! Grab your Marker & Strap on your Goggles! Select your markers, choose your battlefield. Play alone, online with friends or as a squad member. Purchase supplies from the Crosman Ammo Depot, grab you Camo & get ready for the ultimate interactive Paint Ball experience on your PC!
Hexen II Mission Pack from ActiVison After the fall of Edolon, a brutal winter smothers the land - the work of the nefarious wizard, Praevus, who now schemes to harness the darkest powers of the Serpent Riders. Who will dare impede him? Be you the Necromancer, the Assassin, the Paladin, or the scornful Demoness - former minion of Eidolon with a lust for revenge - you must wreak havoc against the wizard and defeat his evil vision. Lest you be numbered among the dead at his wretched victory. Full version of Hexen II required to operate.
Microsoft Internet Explorer Resource Kit from Microsoft Press (Book) {mspress.microsoft.com} - The professional's companion to Microsoft Internet Explorer 4. This exclusive Microsoft collection provides complete technical information on Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4 for the network administrator, the support professional, and the Internet service provider. The Microsoft Internet Explorer Resource Kit gives you a technical resource guide packed with authoritative information and an indispensable CD-ROM containing Microsoft Explorer and Microsoft Internet Explorer Administration Kit . The CD also offers valuable utilities, accessory programs and source code that help you save time and accomplish more.
QUAKE II Ground Zero by ActiVison Take out the BIG GUN. Sounded simple enough, except the Strogg were waiting. You, and a few Marines like you, are the lucky ones. You've made it down in one piece and are still able to contact the fleet. The gravity well, the Strogg's newest weapon in its arsenal against mankind, is operational. With the fleet trapped around Stroggos, 5% of ground forces surviving, and that number dwindling by the second. Your orders have changed: Free your comrades, Destroy the Gravity Well.
Quake the Offering by ActiVison Includes Quake, Quake Mission Pack I, and Quake Mission Pack II. From the masters of first person 3D gaming, ID Software, comes a trilogy of violence guaranteed to consume you. Introducing the complete, adrenaline packed box set featuring original Quake Plus both fully authorized Mission Packs Scourge of Armagon and Dissolution of Eternity. A plethora of beastly levels, lethal weaponry and brutal monsters melded in with nightmarish graphics and effects make this one compilation that'll fill every void (except for the ones you'll get gaming).
Sin by ActiVison When the CEO of SinTek Industries begins injecting the streets with a DNA-altering drug, it's time to reassess the laws of morality. When the same twisted bio-chemist plans to overtake the world with her unholy army of genetically-engineered mutants, it's time to rewrite the golden rule. You are Colonel John R. Blake, head of the most prominent private protection agency in Freeport. Now Elixis Sinclaire is waging her holy war against the security industry...and you along with it. You've make a religion out of fighting crime. Now you are going to make Elixis pay for her crimes.
Teen Digital Diva from ActiVison Create your own magazine with on-screen makeovers, personalized horoscopes, fashion, quizzes and more. Teen Digital Diva lets you express your style by creating your own magazine! Try a ton of cool activities that put you in charge as virtual Editor-in-Chief! Creating your teen magazine is just a click away. Get in touch with your digital side, explore your stylish side, cosmic, glum, trendy, curious, critical or sensitive sides. Scan in your pic, and make the cover of your own teen.
Top Shot by ActiVison Get ready! HeadGames and Remington, America's oldest gunmaker have teamed up to bring you the most advanced shooting simulation game in the world - TOP SHOT! Test your ability in a variety of reality-based target shooting games, or let loose and watch the bullets fly. Compete for high scores, increase your player-rank, and try to become the TOP SHOT! Choose from over 20 different guns including rifles, shotguns, automatics and handguns. Extensive 19 page illustrated gun safety section teaches life-saving safety techniques. Over 10 shooting games to play and 5 different police-style shooting simulators.
Utility Pack from QuarterDeck CleanSweep, Crash Defender and ViruSweep. The prefect suite of tools for Home and Small Business use! CleanSweep, the #1 choice for safe and complete hard drive clean-up. Award-winning CleanSweep is the Fastest, Safest and most complete hard drive clean-up solution available, simplifying the removal of outdated applications and the widest array of unneeded and unwanted files. Crash Defender Deluxe is the most reliable protection against crashes and screen freezes. With Crash Defender Deluxe, you can work (and play) with the confidence of knowing that the Best Windows crash protection available is safeguarding you and your data against productivity-killing crashes and screen freezes. Crash Defender Deluxe is the ONLY crash protection solution for Windows 95/98 and Windows NT designed to automatically intercept and fix crashes and screen freezes BEFORE they cause a loss of data. ViruSweep Kills Before they Damage your PC. Proactive ViruSweep doesn't wait until your PC is infected before it detects a virus. It Automatically guards your system to stop viruses before they infect your files. No other virus protection is as through.
To review ANY OF THE ABOVE listed products: Phone: Donna Nendell 565-9594 E-Mail: donna.nendell@aros.net Fee: $5.00 S/H
URGENT NOTICE!
The following product reviews are overdue. Please turn them in immediately
or return the product. Blue Chips may not receive future releases if a
review is not published. Our review program depends on released product
reviews appearing in this magazine. Please give us your cooperation!
AURA Carl May Squiggle Mike Lewis WinBatch Gale Lemmon On Target 2.0 Lauryn Wingate PaperBridge 3.0 Max Holloway EZ PhotoReader Joe Brame Presto! PhotoAlbum Gena Roe Crash Course Win95/NT 4 Robert Wyss Legal Collection for Win95 Charles Stepheson
If you know any of the above mentioned members, please contact them and ask them to either submit a review or return the product. You will be helping yourself and Blue Chips by taking this action!
BOLD PRINT INDICATES EXTREME VIOLATION!
PLEASE RETURN PRODUCT IMMEDIATELY!
![[Law++ Image]](../../images/law2.gif)
by John Ogilvie
As international sales become an ever-increasing part of the revenues of many U.S. companies, interest in obtaining foreign patent protection has also increased. There is no such thing as a worldwide patent. The geographic scope of any given patent is generally limited to a single country.
However, steps can be taken to reduce the time, effort, and expense of filing patents in more than one country. One of the major tools for pursuing patent protection in multiple countries is the Patent Cooperation Treaty, generally referred to as the "PCT". The PCT is a multilateral treaty which began operating in 1978. It is administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization, which is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.
Not every country is a member of the PCT. However, many countries of interest to computer software and hardware vendors are PCT members, as well as many countries which are important to other industries. For instance, PCT membership currently includes the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, all Western European nations, Russia, mainland China, Japan, North and South Korea, Australia, and many central African states. On December 7, 1998, India became the ninety-eighth member of the PCT.
The PCT makes it easier to obtain patent protection in PCT member nations by allowing a patent applicant to file a single international patent application instead of filing several separate national and/or regional patent applications. The international application may designate member countries and/or member regions (such as Western Europe). It is still necessary at some point to pursue individual national patents based on the international application, but several important steps in the patent application process can be carried out once on the international application instead of being performed several times on national or regional applications. This tends to both simplify the application process and to reduce its cost when several countries are involved.
For instance, formalities such as the format requirements for text and drawings are checked by checking the international application. A single international patentability search is performed, and the results are made available to the individual patent offices of the designated countries. Optionally, an international patentability examination is also performed. National filing fees, translation costs, and related expenses can also be deferred without losing the benefit of one's priority date.
Additional information about the PCT is available online from the United States Patent and Trademark Office at http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pa c/dapps/pct/ and from the World Intellectual Property Organization at http://pctgazette.wipo.int/.
John W. L. Ogilvie is a Registered Patent Attorney and founder of the Computer Law++ law firm. He can be reached at (801) 355-0828 or email jwlo@LawPlusPlus.com.More information is available at http://www.lawplusplus.com. LAWPLUSPLUS is mark, and Law++ and COMPUTER LAW++ are federally registered marks of John Ogilvie. Copyright 1998 John Ogilvie. All Rights Reserved.
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