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Feedback from February 3

The 133 MHz box from MCA

Didn't know who made the motherboard? Come on!

Not that I didn't enjoy your review but please! I think it is crucial in a review to tell us which motherboard they put in your box.

I have always believed that generic is best. I don't buy from Dell or Compaq, not because I don't believe in their quality but because I am afraid that anything I might want to add on later might not work due to some design philosophy at the company who supplied the base unit. (I believe these companies represent quality, don't get me wrong. I still have a Compaq Portable III ('286) that I bought in 1987 - running Compaq DOS 3.1 that runs perfectly.)

However I also believe that you build a computer "from the ground up". My current box is a Pentium '166 with a Super Micro Moboard that I acquired by the process of "Hit or Miss" - I am quite happy with it. I would have much preferred to have made my choice of motherboard based on a product review from OS/2 e-Zine! -- and somebody ELSE's experience. Please include such information in future reviews.

Fred Peachman


I have read your article about the 2 machines preloaded with OS/2. I found that there is a major difference in Disk I/O and File I/O performance in the 2 machines though they are using the same WD hard drive. Also the CPU performance of the MCA 133 meachine appears to be better than the one with Cyrix 150+. Can you throw some light on that as to why it's the case.

Howard Lee


It probably had something to do with the fact that the Indelible Blue machine had only a 256K cache while the MCA machine has a 512K cache. Also, I suspect that the hard disk controllers have great effect on these measurements.

You should note however, that the File I/O section of the Sysbench results is dependant on swapfile size and is meant to measure changes to one machine as you modify its swap file and do not necessarily represent differences between the two machines.

- editor


Finder's Commission

Just a thought. I've downloaded tested and subsequently bought just about ALL of the software on my PC -- after reading about it in your magazine. I've just downloaded the EBCScheduler and this triggered the thought, why don't you somehow route these requests via your server so you can get a count of the number of times your evaluations and good ideas result in a download. Surely that would be good for some marketing milage with the original supplier? There may even be a case to be made that you receive some type of finder's commission. As a salesman, I can assure you that I do a similar job to you -- and live well on the proceeds.

Peter French


Thanks Peter. Make sure you repeat those comments to our sponsors!

- editor


OS/2 e-Zine! Readers' Choice Awards Categories

Whilst I understand that choosing categories must be difficult, I would have liked to have seen (in the business section) a category for financial programs (there are in fact quite a few of them out there). These are IMHO a badly neglected group of apps that make any business tick. How can you run a business without doing your accounting?

Paul Secrett


An excellent point. This was an oversight on our part and we will correct it next year.

- editor


OS2 Sound Card Support/Creative Labs

Your current issue questions Creative Labs' reasoning for not supporting new hardware under OS2. I really think you should investigate and report on why IBM doesn't support the latest Mwave products under Warp 4. Specifically, IBM will not provide drivers for "Stingray" Mwave boards, the boards in new "S" class Aptivas, for Warp 4. They have announced no plans to provide drivers for "Stingray" boards. IBM deserves to be criticized at least as much as Creative Labs !!!!!

Edwin Collins


We agree!

- editor


Archivers

One archiver that's obscure but worth looking at is UC2 (UltraCompressor 2). It handles extended attributes and does some things zip doesn't do.

John McGing


Warp Server SMP Review

Are the FixPaks for Warp Server also for Warp Server SMP, or has the SMP-version its own FixPaks?

Jerome Spaanjaars


To my knowledge, the Warp Server fixpaks are separate from any for Warp Server SMP. The SMP version already has many of the updates that come with Warp Server fixes. The newer version of MPTS is an example.

The documentation included with all Warp Server fixes will show you specifically what version of the product a given fix is valid for.

- Chris Williams


IBM AntiVirus vs. Dr. Solomon's

In V2n1 you review an antivirus product (Dr. Solomon?). A comment is made that IBM AntiVirus does not detect OS/2 viruses. Is this true? If so, perhaps a few extra comments should have been included in the article!

BTW the price of IBM AntiVirus certainly makes it competitive with this other product but the real question is "Which works better?". And, one other thing, the documentation that I got with IBM AntiVirus is excellent.

Paul Calamai


The comment about IBMAV not detecing OS/2 viruses is true. At a recent demo of Dr. Solomon's Anti-Virus for OS/2 an IBM user wanted to see how good IBM anti-virus (this was version 2.5) was. He handed a copy to the Dr. Solomon's employee doing the presentation. The Dr. Solomon's guy put it in his computer and it only found 1 or 3 viruses. It didn't inform us about the OS/2 viruses, which Dr. Solomon's anti-virus did.

On that simple test IBM failed and didn't notice the OS/2 viruses. Naturally everybody wants to be 100% protected but don't worry too much; the OS/2 viruses have never really been found in the "field". All the Anti-Virus people have a copy that they keep carefully controlled, but for most users there currently isn't really a large threat. Hopefully the virus will never turn up on the loose though.

- Noah Sumner

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