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I thought the article on installing the Matrox Mystique was interesting. But, I think people should know that they will not necessarily have that much trouble installing the card. I just bought one despite the article because of some experiences I had with a Matrox Millenium on some customers machines. I had it installed on both Warp 4 and Win 95 in 20 minutes with no problems at all. I got rid of a Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 because the drivers provided by S3 don't work well with the Diamond card. Anyway, I just thought readers should know that I have had a great experience with the Mystique
I've been using OS/2 for years and I always liked it, but I thought it could never be the only System on my Computer. Today I think it can be. OS/2 Warp 4 is together with its Freeware and an Office like the StarOffice or the Smartsuite is the best thing EVERY Computer could get. But there are no new OS/2 Users. Every day hundreds of people decide to by a PC, but most of them (may be all) get the "Gates System" for their new one.
I believe the only thing we must do is to say to everyone, that there is a System like OS/2 and that this system has also a chance. And maybe then tomorrow there will be not only those very good programs for OS/2 but also many who use them.
Soon I and a friend are starting a campaign in Germany calld "freie Wahl" (free choice). I hope there are people all over the world who do the same and let everyone know that every PC User can choose which Operation System he wants to use.
Some time ago you asked for ideas to make OS/2 e-Zine! (even) better. Have you considered giving people who become subscribers the option of having the e-zine emailed to them directly as a zipped/mime/html attachment? This alone would probably convince me to pay $15 per annum.
A great idea that we have considered. What about it readers? Are you interested in such a system?
- editor
I thought I might bring up that there is currently a world-wide effort to crack the much used DES encryption scheme. This is a coordinated project where your computer downloads a few million key combinations and then attempts to solve them. Then your system uploads its results and get another key block etc...
Now, the program that solves the keys is available on many platforms, including OS/2. Statistics are kept on what platform does how many keys and such, and unfortunatly, OS/2 is ranked number 9 out of 10. It would be a great showing if you could inform OS/2 users to join in on this project, not to mention that the computer that cracks the code will get $1000 U.S.... The place to point your browser is:
Thank you for you wonderful e-zine. I have one topic I'd like someone to talk about in a future issue. Although I have been using OS/2 since version 1.3, I still don't understand how to get much out of any of the dozens of available INI file editors. Even though my OS2.INI and OS2SYS.INI files approach 2 MB combined, every editor shows me the same small number of keys. Nothing I do seems to reduce the size of my INI files, or produce any of the performance benefits I keep hearing about.
The only software which has ever made a material difference for me was CHECKINI. When I ran that program, it offered me the chance to remove many, many entries which I hadn't even seen using other editors.
Too many, as it turns out -- the system became unstable and I had to restore the unedited INI files. But while it lasted, performance did pick up perceptibly.
What sort of tool is CHECKINI, anyway? Are there others like it? How can I use it more safely? Any guidance you can offer would be much appreciated.
Checkini is an 'INI cleaner' which automatically looks for common problems. As amazing as it seems (at least to me), OS/2 does some really stupid things with its INI files: it continually adds references to things like folder sizes and positions (and others) and NEVER removes them. This is just the simplest example of the type of things that Checkini removes from INI files.
I have never had a problem with Checkini and actually have never heard of anyone who has, until now. I'm sorry to hear that you had problems with it.
As for using it more safely, I'm afraid I really can't comment. The documentation is comprehensive but a little complicated. Perhaps an e-mail to the author might be useful?
- editor
I wish to add some weight to your comments in this month's 'From the Editor' column. Firstly, as a home user of OS/2 Warp Connect (I am forced to use Windows '95 at work), I will be staying with OS/2 for the forseeable future. The compulsory use of Windows '95 at my place of daytime employment is one of the reasons I am so strong in my determination to use OS/2 at home. The company I work for has adopted the 'Windows everywhere' thinking and everything else is taboo (except for Novell 4.1 on all our servers, which will be replaced with NT in the next five years, and some UNIX boxes to provide us with the industrial strength business applications). I have to put up with my state of the art P166/1.3Gb/32Mb workstation crashing while running ordinary office type application sometimes up to 12 times per week.
My 486DX100/850Mb/24Mb home machine runs the same applications (under winOS/2) plus a stack of DOS games, and has not had a single crash in 17 months! (fingers crossed) It even survived my adding fixpak 26.
I have just spent AU$495.00 of my hard earned money to purchase IBM's Freshware package. This gives me OS/2 V3.0, and the Lotus Smartsuite (full licences) for all platforms, as well as PC-DOS and several other applications. The sweetener here is that for 12 months (from November 1996) I will receive 3 quarterly updates to all the applications in the package. This currently equates to Warp 4.0 and Smartsuite '97, and if I'm lucky Warp 4.1 might be released just before the last update in November 1997. When you consider the full licence prices of just those two packages alone ($285.00 and $700.00) this is a real bargain.
I don't understand why IBM isn't shipping these by the truckload! As for the lot of the developers, it seems to me that there are about 15 million or so of us (admittedly businesses and ATM machines generally don't play games!) just sitting around waiting to purchase their products.
Of course we're sufficiently discerning to avoid buying featurless junk, especially when we can see several inexpensive similar products for the Windows platform that gives us much greater functionality. All they need to do is produce quality software at a fair price, and we'll buy it! Also, many of them are in the enviable position of having a virtual monopoly for their particular market segment, something they wouldn't have if they were to jump in with the feeding frenzy of competing Windows software vendors.
An example here is the flight simulator (either flight sim or fighter sim) market. I have written (e-mail) to a couple of flight sim vendors pointing out that if they ported their product over to OS/2, they would be the first, but still no positive response. I've probably said enough for now. Just thought that as a home end user I'd share some positive thoughts, instead of griping.
I feel reluctant to say, but I have been a user of Windows 95 for well over a year now. Recently, I felt that the Win95 platform was extremely limited for what I wanted to do. I am a student at Kansas Sate University in Manhattan, Kansas. I am currently studying Information Systems and I hope to be a budding software developer in a few years. Much of my programming knowlege is based in DOS. I have not yet moved to the Windows platform because I feel that it leaves no room for creativity and creative design methods when it comes to coding. Recently, a friend of mine purchased OS/2 v4.0. Sad to say, he was not happy with it. He offered it to me at a fair price and, due to my dissatisfaction with Windows, I picked it up. I have had some experience with OS/2. I was a user of OS/2 v3.0 in the past and thought that the change to v4.0 would be refreshing.
I was right. After cruising around v4, I am happy to say that I never want to see Windows again. As an end user, I like OS/2 for several reasons.
1) It allows me to work with DOS applications I have developed in a fast, secure enviroment. No longer do I have to worry about crashing my system because Win95 does not know what I am doing.
2) OS/2, contrary to popular belief, does have a great set of programs available for it. I picked up some evaluation copies of programs that beat the pants off many Windows programs. Abd for those programs that I cannot find for OS/2, I can still use Windows 16bit software and rest asured that I am running at optimal speed.
3) The OS/2 world feel like a family, not a dictatorship like Microsoft. With Microsoft, the idea seem like, "use our stuff or be left in the dust", with OS/2 this is not true.
Anyway, where am I going with all this? Simple, I want to say thanks. I want to say thanks to you and your staff for making the transition to OS/2 enjoyable and keeping the faith alive. I want to say thanks to all those die hard OS/2 fans. I love you all!
OS/2 preload lists I have seen lately are outdated. Vendors know nothing about the availability of such preloads. I am having trouble finding a Thinkpad with Select-A-System or any other type of OS/2 preinstalled arrangement on an IBM machine. I believe we need to readdress this issue; I find it embarrassing, personally, to be in the situation where I show more loyalty to IBM than they do to me.
We agree! Wake up your local hardware distributor, e-mail them and tell them you require OS/2 preloaded on your next machine!
- editor
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