Feedback from June 24

HTML-Ed Review.

Thanks for helping me discover HTML-Ed by publishing Chris Wenham's review. I've been looking for something just like this! My only complaint is that there was no link to download it.

On another note, please consider implementing a simple search engine or index. Several times in the last month I've needed to locate a past article for friends and had to go through issue looking for them.

Thanks Again!

Michael Neice


- Thanks Michael. We're working on a comprehensive index and we'll try to be more diligent with the links for downloading!

More Wet Paper Bags.

In general, I agree with your editorial. On the point that advertising to the general public does not do any good, I disagree. In my position as president of the local users group and a member of Team OS/2, I have spoken to many people. Mentioning OS/2, the responses have split into three general camps: 'Whats That?'; 'OS/2 Is DEAD, IBM doesn't even support it anymore!'; and 'We used to use it, but management decided W95 is the future'. ALL of these speak to the lack of advertising by IBM. (I try to forget the fiasco of 'It's A WARPED WORLD' and the accompanying techno-geek ads...)

Every Olympic sponsor is pushing their product's involment and how it is 'critical' to the games. I've only seen one ad from IBM, and it was just a basic IBM name recognition ad. Where's the 'When you need reliability, you need OS/2' type ads? You DON'T have to get technical. Look at the MS ads. No technical info there, just a no brainer ad that KEEPS THE NAME IN FRONT OF THE PEOPLE.

In this age of information overload, if you don't remind people constantly of something, it will lose any sense of importance and will soon FADE AWAY and disappear. If SOMEONE doesn't do something, I fear this will become OS/2's fate as well.

cwolcott@pen.net


NeoLogic FTPd Review.

Is there some advantage this product has over the ftp deamon supplied with OS/2 Warp Connect?

Jeff Mathers


- Well, ease of use, for one thing; also, better threading, and the fact that you don't need Warp Connect to use it. (It works just as well with the BonusPak PPP connector.)

Lief Clennon


Trevor's Rant.

I agree on making OS/2 something for the average knuckle-dragger off the street to use without being a geek. However, it must have something going for it as both of my children want it on their systems. My son (11) is a geek in training with a kludged machine that was given to me. Not well designed, but it worked as one button install with Warp. It took 12 attempts to install OS/2 2.11 for Windows and even then it never booted successfully. Warp has run flawlessly in 8 Mb ram, 386DX/33 with 2 HDDs that total less than 200 Meg between them. He's happy.

My daughter (13) saw Warp on her brother's machine and decided she wants it on the machine I'm building for her. She is not impressed with PCs, and does not revere them with the proper attitude us true believers do. She does like the color schemes and desktops, Works appeals to her, as does the PIM, and other applets that relate to time and space and appointments. She is definitely not a geek, yet it appeals to her very much.

Bottom line -- I agree with the editorial. Until Warp is easy to use and install, the market of computer users (as differentiated from us geeks) will pass it by. On the other hand, don't sell Warp short yet, it does have a visual appeal that is compelling. It also has a calender, phonebook, appointment book, and to do list that are tied together in a manner that is very impressive to the initiate.

Mark Besch


Regarding Trevor's Rant on simplification:

I hear you brother! Nothing turns off a computer user more than a bunch of incoherent technobable. Especially in a business setting, the last thing a busy person needs is to have a computer problem that he/she cannot take care of ASAP. Time IS money in a business and downtime is the worst kind of waste. I hope the change in scenery will make a difference in how OS/2 creators see what needs to be done.

Darin Fennell


The Inhuman's Favorite Band?

Just curious. Gwar purports to maintain a fortress in Antarctica from which they plot the enslavement of humanity. Is The Inhuman a fan of Gwar, or are they merely pipsqueak upstarts whom Ominor suffers to indulge in their pathetic fantasies?

Your most obedient and humble servant,

Ian Crosby


Heath's Tips in Issue #7.

In reference to having to reboot after using Dial Other Internet Provider's after only using it once, I think the problem is that "Slattach.exe" is closing before it should, because you always get this "Slattach failed" error message when you try your dialer a second time.

I'm pretty sure I corrected the problem, simply by going into "Slattach.exe" settings notebook, sessions settings and turning off the default "close window on exit" check box.

Mark Nunnelee


Quake Problems Under OS/2?

You may know that the shareware version of Quake has just been released onto the Net - it seems to be version 0.91, which may indicate it's a late beta. I downloaded it earlier this evening, and played it for a while under native DOS; it's not bad at all, though not such a great leap from Doom IMHO.

Anyway, I then created a program object for it under OS/2, and set it off. It played surprisingly well, and best of all, it gave me full sound, even digital FX. I was very impressed by this, and although Ctrl+Esc couldn't get me back to the desktop for some reason, it made a good impression. Then I exited, the screen went black and... it stayed that way. Oh well, I thought - these things happen. Go for the reset button, and all will be well.

Or so I thought, at least until I rebooted and the PM started up. Suddenly I get a message box. It tells me, in effect, that I have a knackered OS2.INI file and it can't find the desktop, and would I like an OS/2 window? No, I want my desktop back, actually. So, I reboot again, and choose an archive from earlier in the evening, before I began.

Well, I got the desktop back, but at a price. It seems all is not still well, as a number of objects have "broken links", have lost icons, and so on. Sadly I have no backups of the *.INI files (never worked out how to copy them), so unless the e-Zine article on restoring desktops can help, I may have a long repair task ahead.

I don't know whether this was caused by my error, Quake, bad luck or combinations thereof, but I would warn anyone thinking of trying Quake under OS/2 to be most careful, and at least to have good backups of essential files before they jump in. I don't know if any long-term damage has been done to my OS/2 setup, but I'd say I've learned the hard way about the consequences of not doing so.

BTW, the Quake program object should have DPMI memory of 8Mb, and the AUTOEXEC.BAT needs the BLASTER variable set, and it should run fine. And any advice will be much appreciated...

Tim Walker


Souper and Yarn INF File.

I spent most of this morning installing Yarn/Soup with the help of the inf file you put up at the OS/2 e-Zine! site, and just wanted to drop you a quick fan letter with my thanks. I had despaired of finding a solution to reading newsgroups -- everyone I tried seemed bloated, or much too complicated, not to mention costly, and though I'd seen plenty of Usenet posts testifying as to the utility of Soup/Yarn configurations, I thought it was probably too much to figure out.

Anyway, your help was just what was needed, and it's finally a pleasure to be about to monitor Usenet without having Webex's newsreader stop my system dead, or try to figure out what window I should be looking for in Neologic, or deciding whether to download and install the trial version of Postroad, which I never bought because it also seemed to waste a lot of time...

Rafe Tennenbaum

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