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Feedback from October 9

Canadian OS/2 Users

I am Canadian and I use OS/2. Those are 2 things I am very proud of. Unfortunately, I have been turned off by the high price of OS/2 products in Canada. Sure, most quality programs run for $69.00, but that's US funds. With the exchange rate as it is, plus GST, etc., I cannot afford to puchase many OS/2 programs. Most DOS games that I buy are in the $40-65 CDN range, unlike OS/2 games that run $80-110 CDN. Same with utilities such as OD, or Partition Magic. OD: $134.95. Part. Mag: $105.95. Why is it that most DOS/WIN apps have lower prices? In some cases, it's cheaper to buy DOS/WIN products in Canada than in th US (I live in Surrey BC, about 5 mins away from the U.S., so I do a lot of price checking etc).

I expect to pay around $115 US for Merlin, but that's OK. What I am really concerned about is Partition Magic and Avarice. At over 100 CDN bucks a piece, I dunno.

I know there are a lot of OS/2 users in Canada and most do agree with me. I don't know what can be done or how it could be fixed, I'm just complaining about it.

My 2 cents worth (1.44 cents US).

Jamie Caplan


An Idea...

Just an idea I had the other day:

You know about that program from IBM, Workplace Shell for Windows, right? Well, what if they, or someone else were to create a similar thing for Win3.x that gave it as much of the Win95 interface as possible, and was free like WPS for Windows? There might actually be something out there - I don't know. Since many of the benefits of Win95 over Win3.x are in the interface, this might keep many people from switching.

Ryan Gray


MathMate Review

Dear Editor,

I am the author of MathMate, the mathematical program reviewed by Dr Terrell in your magazine. I would like to thank him for his valuable report on the program and add a few comments.

1. Dr. Terrell suggests that the physical constants in the program might be more useful if given in the MKS (SI) units. This has been implemented some time ago, together with the ability to switch between CGSE and SI. The updated version (eliminating also a minor bug) may be found at http://jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu/~russakov/mathmate.html. It also contains the "minimize" button.

2. Dr. Terrell suggests that it might be handy to allow constants in the integration limits. This feature, along with some other ones will be available in the Java version of Mathmate which I am planning to release in the last quarter of this year. The program is currently being tested under OS/2 and Windows 95. At this point, I am still accepting user suggestions as to the program features. Everybody is welcome to send the suggestions to russakov@math.berkeley.edu.

Dr. Alex Russakovskii


Regarding SofTouch Systems' Reply

What a breath of fresh air! In this era of "never complain, never explain" (or as MS would say, "that's not a bug, that's a feature!), the reply from SofTouch Systems to the e-Zine! review of Unimaint 5.0 was refreshing to say the least. Although I was hesitating, I'm now going to purchase a copy of Gammatech Utilities. With this sort of a company behind it, I feel my investment is sound. Keep up the honesty and support of OS/2!

David Ross


Trevor's Rant, September '96

Well, if you look at how IBM released Merlin, it confirms that IBM is not serious about OS/2 anymore. Gosh, I would have expected the hoopla on the same level as the Win95 release of last year. But just a simple 2 inch column in the paper plus maybe two days of muted one page ads and that's it, the show is over folks!

So can you explain to us what more "positive" predictions you have and how they correlate with IBM's acts?

Alain Beaulieu


- Well, it's probably a little early still to say how much publicity IBM's launch even created. However, I suspect that to find it when it comes (the publicity), you will need to look in business oriented publications as opposed to end-user oriented publications. While IBM has advertised the new Warp 4 in end-user publications such as OS/2 e-Zine!, for the most part, they are concentrating on selling it to large businesses, not home or small office users.

OK, $495 to $3K is a lot of green, but if you NEED an answer, it might be justified. I bet the I could justify the middle classification by just a couple of days of fighting my way through a problem. Some businesses don't slip schedules just because the programmers are having a hard time.

MY rant would have to do with Lotus forcing anybody who wants to develop for Notes to run NT! I'm really steamed about that. I'm not even sure Domino and Notes 4.5 will even be delivered for OS/2 - we may have to wait for Notes 5.0!

Charlie


Answers from e-Zine!

In the "Answers" section of the October issue, there was a question regarding where to purchase OS/2 products such as coffee mugs, hats, t-shirts, pens, etc. Check out "OS/2 Judy's Warped World" for information on where to purchase such items.

Brad Skeen

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