Feedback from July 9

Page Turning Icons

A good idea to put at the bottom of your front pages are "next page" icons. I like to peruse every page of your magazine for helpful tips. As it is now, I have to pick an article to start with, instead of just moving on...

J. Christopher Dick


- Well, believe it or not, you are not the first person to request this feature. I had hoped that people would just naturally want to start with the editorial (grin) but since some want an "official" start button, we'll be implementing one starting in the next issue.

Off-line Adventures

Instead of using alarm clock 3.0, you could have chosen cron/2, a freeware unix utility, to schedule your overnight news gathering. It's fairly easy to set up if you read the documentation a couple times.

Paul Haggart


I just read your article on off-line reading and it occurred to me that the "Event Launcher" applet included in the Bonus Pack's IBM Works product could probably do for free what you used the $25 "Alarm Clock" program for. Might be worth checking out.

Also, I must put in a plug for the freeware program "changi" that lets you use any nntp client as an offline usenet reader.

John


I was really impressed by your article on automated offline news reading which I just read. There is one thought that immediatly came to my mind when I read your article. It was: Wow, this demonstrates how far behind good old DOS, so called user-friendly GUI operating systems still are.

While your solution to the problem was quite impressive, it took you four programs to get the job done, wheras one single DOS program could provide you with the same functionality. The name of the program is "Crosspoint", one of my all time favorites. It does schedules dialups, automated news downloads and automated reply uploads. It's a DOS prog without a great GUI (according to the author it will never be rewritten to provide a GUI), but it does it's job perfectly well. Probably one its most outstanding featured it that it can be used as an offline reader for usenet, bbs and fido all at the same time.

Matthias Boehm


Chris' Rant

In his column, Chris mentions a WinBigots' plan to purchase a Macintosh for the sole purpose of beating it with a sledgehammer. Too bad they're already too late -- it's been done, not with a Mac though. I saw a video made by some Amiga freaks. It contained mainly very nice 3D animations rendered on an Amiga 4000, but in between the animations was -- b&w footage of people jumping on a pile of PC's and beating them with hammers.

Pauli Ojala


In response to Chris Wenham's rant in the July issue, I would like to suggest that we should respond to the foolishness of others, not to try to change their minds, but to make sure that other people who hear them are exposed to another point of view.

Greg Walz-Chojnacki


Linfield's Line

Read your latest "Linfield's Line" and just wanted to let you know that I can be counted in the first group. I missed your column last issue -- I'll check it out -- so I don't know exactly what you said, and I must admit that I am sick of c.o.o.a so I rarely read it anymore. That said, I am one of the 1st level beta testers using Merlin, and it is slow and buggy (I'm running it on a P120 w/64 megs of 60ns RAM and a Matrox Millenium 4meg card and it sometimes feels like a 386SX-16) and no amount of zealot screaming can change this.

Will it get better? Yes... Does it presently have problems? Yes... It should, it is a beta.

Michael Delahoz


Your July article in OS/2 e-Zine! hits home.

I have a deep fear that if I don't upgrade to MERLIN I will be left out in the cold with WARP. I really don't want to lay out $2k for hardware every time an OS is upgraded to the next version. Microsoft did the same to the Windows 3.X users with Win95. IBM did it to OS/2 ver 2.X users when it came out with WARP.

I am still struggling to get WARP to do the things IBM promised me it would do. I am writing to you in a Windows program because I couldn't get the IAK to work with NETCOM. Now I admit I am not a sophisticated user and that the help is out there from user groups, etc. My point is that the computer is a tool to accomplish a task. The OS be it DOS, UNIX, OS/2, etc. should not get in the way of accomplishing that task.

I drive a car without knowing how its internal combustion engine works. Why should I? The same goes for a computer. I admit that my curiousity makes me get more involved. But the computer is not an end in itself.

So it looks like we are at the mercy of the software developers. It will be fun to watch the hype surrounding MERLIN as it gets clsoer to full release. Look what happened to Microsoft with Win95.

John Joseph Shabunas


TEX: GNU Part 4

I have an addition to this article. THE URL given at the HOBBES Virtual mirror is VERY outdated. Even the other sites offered by the Hobbes Virtual mirror show only outdated information.

It would have been better if you would have pointed to one of the CTAN sites which carry up-to date information at the following URL:

ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/.23/tex/ctan

The OS/2 specific version emTeX is at:

ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/.23/tex/ctan/systems/os2

Oliver Schurr


I've just read your interesting article about TeX and LaTeX in the most recent issue of OS/2 e-Zine!.

Two comments: First, isn't writing a review of TeX without mentioning Don Knuth about the same as writing a review of Genesis without mentioning God? (Since He (Knuth, not God) was a classmate of mine at Case Inst. of Technology, I tend to notice these kinds of things. I also, 40 years on, still remember that damn 650.)

Second, I tried to print your MORPH4.PS file and found I had to rem out the setpagedevice stuff to get it to print on my Optra R. YMMV, but this might be a problem with other PS printers.

Thanks for a nice article.

John Dierdorf


- Indeed, neglecting to mention Dr. Knuth was an error on my part. He is a great man in the field of computing. A friend of mine has three volumes written by him and tells me they are a "definitive reference" in the field of computer science.

It has been difficult writing about any GNU software without neglecting the background of these applications. Many of these "OS/2 goodies" have been important standards in the computer world for years. To Donald Knuth and hundreds of others I owe a debt of gratitude.

Murray Todd Williams


Editorial

Indeed, "powerful features require powerful hardware". And computer hardware prices fall continuously. I just want to point out that your editorial regarding the "low" cost of upgrading to Merlin did not address the cost concerns of those of us who have chosen OS/2 as our operating system of choice for our laptop computers.

Speaking for myself, it was all I could afford to just buy my ThinkPad (and what a fine machine it is!). However, the cost of upgrading the hard drive and the relatively-expensive SO-DIMM's make upgrade out of the question at this time.

David Alfano


Jason Perlow Speaks Out

Jay Perlow and I both began using OS/2 with the release of version 2.0 in 1992. Since then, both apart and together, we've been involved in a variety of OS/2 related activites -- including for several years OS2Web.

Let me go on record as saying that in all of those years I never met anyone who was as hopeful for, devoted to and as supportive of OS/2 as Jason Perlow. At the same time (and people with selective memories forget this), Jay never for a moment forgot that an Operating System is just a tool and not a religion. He could (and did) occasionally lose his temper and say things he later regretted -- but he never in my memory confused the tools he used with things of real importance.

Jay was shabily treated by Team-OS/2 (and to a lesser degree, I was myself--after 4 years of volunteering my services for software store demos, appearing in IBM promotional video tapes, being the Editor-in-Chief of OS2Web, and co-running a huge OS/2 User group, I still never made their official teamer "membership list" despite submitting my name at every possibile opportunity).

People will say that I have mny own axe to grind, but I'll echo Jason's own statements and bear witness to the fact that things just "ain't right" in a community of users where blame matters more than logic and professionalism less than getting the last word. One last issue. Despite some hyperbole of Jason's own making, it is just not accurate to describe Jason's shift from OS/2 to NT as any kind of turnabout. From a technology standpoint I still hear him spout off about how much better OS/2 does this or does. He also has never made a secret of the fact that his main "problem" with NT centered around its steep resource requirements. Well guess what? Both hard drives and RAM are dirt cheap now and those requirements are no longer so daunting. Jay's position hasn't changed--the world around him has.

All I can say to those who STILL insist on flaming is "grow up." I've always avoided on-line discussion because of these people, but enough is enough. Think of this as a Darwinian test--adapt or die.

Jonathan Lurie
former Editor-in-Chief of OS2Web


What a waste of bandwidth.

Your interview with a total egocentric like Jason Perlow was just that.

James Schmidt


PartitionMagic Review

I was reading your review of PM and noted your gripe about the "partitions in use" issue. Well, I ran into this over a year ago when I first got PM. The solution was simple.

I always keep two partitions with OS/2 installed on them. One of them is my "main" install and is the one I normally boot from. The other is a maintenance partition (I got this habit from my days with OS/2 2.0). This second partition is very minimal and I can easily modify all other HPFS partitions after booting from it (you have to set up PM to work from there, however). Once you've got that setup, life is *sweet*.

David Boles

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