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Feedback from Issue #6

Editorial [--Top--]

Some time has gone by since your editorial in Vol 1 No. 4, in which you politely take me to task for being excessively negative. I have certainly no desire to debate my commitment to OS/2 in the Web pages of the e-Zine! I've devoted nearly three years to developing and building OS/2 Magazine, and I remain firmly committed to our magazine's success -- and to the success of our readers. So does Miller Freeman Inc., the publishing company that stands behind OS/2 Magazine.

I would, however, like to address two points. The first, about OS/2 Warp's sales of one million licenses in December 1995: I first heard about this on January 23, 1996. My "Road Kill" editorial was written far earlier: According to my tracking system, "Perspectives" was last edited on January 8, the magazine was sent to film output on January 11, and was being printed around January 26. I noted that excellent sales number, as well as many other positive factors about OS/2's health, in April's editorial, "Life and Hope."

About my comments about Athena Design Inc' s closing: Rarely have I so pleased to be wrong! Obviously, the company didn't close, and is currently open for business. But in case you are wondering, our story was based on information provided by company representatives in late December 1995; only much later did we realize that we were provided inaccurate information.

Thanks for the opportunity to set the record straight,

Alan Zeichick
Editor-in-Chief
OS/2 Magazine


- The truth is, that OS/2 Magazine carries a lot of weight in the OS/2 community and users (our readers included) are made uncomfortable when they feel you (and therefore the magazine) are pessimistic about OS/2's future. We do appreciate your personal and professional commitment to OS/2. Thanks for the reassurance!
In your editorial letter you write about Describe's announcement to cease development of their word processor. I agree with you that this has been very disappointing for many OS/2 users. I disagree with you on the meaning of Describe's problems. Describe sales were an excellent indicator for OS/2 sales to desktop users in the US. The product was extremely popular among this group of people. Many bought even a second copy when the Voyager CD came out. Describe had no major bugs - just a few features missing. The fact that sales were still limited to 1500-3000 per month clearly indicates that sales numbers of OS/2 in the US are too low to maintain development of such a product. In this light I understand why Corel and WordPerfect gave up the OS/2 market.

To compare the impact of Describe's failure with that of WordPerfect lacks consideration of two issues: First, WordPerfect's problems did not hurt any Windows user because there are many alternative products. The selection for OS/2 word processors is very limited at this point. Second, WordPerfect for windows went through a long development from a mediocre version 5 to the bug-ridden version 6 and strong competition from competitive software in Microsoft's MSOffice suite. There was no such competition for Decsribe.

Ulrich Guenther


Heath's Tips [--Top--]

There were a few incorrect items in the config.sys article for April.
  1. You cannot type dinstsnd.cmd at any os/2 prompt. You must first change to the mmos2/install directory.
  2. If you REM out the fat cache as he suggests, then the system will return to using it at its default level (10% of RAM). I also understand you can't put a number less than 32 or will go back to the default. So set it at 32 if you don't need FAT support.
  3. There is one very important number Heath should have changed but did not mention. /CRECL:4 should be 32 or higher (you will notice a significant speed improvement if you make this change).
Michael Neice

Trevor's Rant [--Top--]

I agree most heartily with your urging people to register their shareware app and utilities. FWIW, I have tried out *lots* of shareware apps since I converted to Warp in late '94. Few I've registered and another few I'm still "trying out", but most of them get uninstalled pretty soon. Why? Because registering is often too complicated - or at least more complicated than it could be - and it's simply easier to uninstall the app than to start mailing US banknotes overseas. I, like most (?) OS/2 users, am not living in US. Do US folks have any idea what it might cost to send an international money order? It's not a pretty sight, let me assure you.

Shareware authors need a steady flow of income - agreed. I'd register a number of apps if it wasn't pain in the butt to do so. Is there something we've missed? You bet! What OS/2 community NEEDS is secure credit card transactions.

Petri Taimisto


The Second Coming of OS/2 [--Top--]

A car analogy... The one that keeps popping into my mind is the old International Scout II.

Its big, ain't all that pretty, and not overwelmed with cute little features and options (our '74 scout had air conditioning, & AM radio), but, if you wanted to go some where, nothing short of a mac truck could stop you.

pichej@cuug.ab.ca


e-mail Reviews [--Top--]

Chris Williams's review of the MR2ICE mail reader omitted mention of my favorite feature: the author's incredible responsiveness to readers. Nick Knight releases weekly updates of the beta, usually on Mondays. He also maintains a mailing list (mr2ice.list@secant.com -- putting "subscribe" in the subject field will get you on it) for questions and suggestions, to which he responds with blazing speed. I posted a complaint about a new feature in the latest version (.99v) at 9 am this morning; he responded within half an hour. I have seen new features show up in the weekly beta a few days after they were suggested. Software designers could learn a lot from this guy. Too many have the habit of blaming customers for features that don't work the way the user wants or expects. Knight seeks out his customers, listens to them, and responds promptly and effectively.

Parker Barss Donham


I read your round-up of PM e-mail clients with great interest, as I hope to set up a home Internet connection in the next month or two. All the apps reviewed sound pretty nifty, especially PMMail, and it's good to see they support attached files. A couple of extras I would've liked:

(a) Some kind of review of UltiMail. I know many readers have already had experience of it, and not many sound positive, but I'd like some idea of why it's bad (or not) and what it actually can do. In your recent FTP round-up there was a brief word for FTP-PM - one for UltiMail would've been the icing on the cake here.

(b) What about a review of Lotus cc:Mail? Assuming there is an OS/2 version, I'd be most interested as I use cc:Mail for Windows :-( at work and get on really well with it. Would it be outside my price range? (I hear Merlin may come with cc:Mail anyway - who knows?)

Tim Walker


- You're right Tim. We should have included Ultimail as a sort of baseline so all readers could judge against it. And the ommission of cc:Mail was a mistake we will try to correct in the future. Thanks.
While going through your reviews of e-mail clients, generally finding it well done and rounded, a large discrepancy crossed my eyes. With mr/2 ice, and Pmmail you tested and rated the most recent and newest available version, yet with post road mailer, you reviewed 1.03a, 1.05d is the current version, and it has many new features that the old version(1.03a) did not, some of the questions that the author had (dislikes?) were resolved in 1.05...

Please when doing software reviews, check to see what the newest version is... it almost reminds me of MS versus other companies... "we have bla 95 brand new, and we'll test against this 2 year old beta"........

Tony Ironside Team OS/2


- A valid point, but we decided to go ahead with PRM v1.03a because InnoVal could not assure us that v1.05 would be available to the general public during the month of April. In fact this looks to be the case so we feel justified in our decision. Rest assured, we will feature a complete review of PRM as soon as it finishes its beta period (or in the month that it will finish).

SIQ Fix [--Top--]

I was disappointed to see that the article on the SIQ "fix" in FP17 didn't mention that it's buggy, and that IBM does _not_ recommend users install FP17 unless they're trying to get into Opendoc at an early stage.

For the record, the SIQ fix is responsible for focus problems that afflict about half the users who install it with various application mixes. This is one of the most frequent complaint topics in OS/2 support forums on CIS.

mkimes@softdisk.com


WPS for Windows [--Top--]

The article on the WPS for Windows recommended installing all Windows software before WPS4W so that the setups wouldn't fail. I've found that it's sufficient to have Program Manager running (it doesn't have to be the shell) when installing a new program to prevent hang-ups when the program creates its folder and icons.

Mike Schwartz


Odds and Ends [--Top--]

[Regarding Kevin Linfield's Favourite OS/2 Freeware]

Thank You,

I dl'd CDinabox, iLink, and magcom today. The only one I haven't tried yet is magcom (that's next). I am impressed with all so far. Good freeware is hard to find. You are providing a necessary service. Keep up the good work.

Brad Kell


I am just writing a short note of congratulations to all involved in the productions of this OS/2 E-Zine. It is a fantastic product, extremely useful. I have been a minimalist user of OS/2 for two or three years now, never experimenting much, never really pushing the sytem to see what I can really get from it. This newsletter (rather a simplistic term for such a wonderful product) is helping me develop my OS/2 skills and knowledge. It is a superb information source. Please keep up the super work that you are all doing.

Dave Gray


- What can we say to that? Thanks!

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