am John Ominor, truly, The Inhuman of legend. It seems that operating system wars stand poised to begin anew. According to at least one publication that has experienced periodic bouts of misjudgment, OS/2 v4.0, or "Merlin" as mortals are wont to call it, will forego a second beta in an attempt to become available at the end of August. Many other sources believe that the Holy Grail of WebBrowsers, namely Netscape, will be included in this package. Standing firm against this Holy Pair is Windows NT 4.0, truly, the mightiest opponent never to prove itself. The ripples of the coming siege begin to manifest themselves...

Is it not interesting that the two Windows 95 advocates who currently lead the battle against OS/2 in the comp.os.os2.advocacy group, namely, The self-styled Truthman and a more recent arrival who believes that Windows 95 will be the entertainment gaming platform of the future are growing ever more vocal of late? Is it not more interesting that these two find themselves so deep into OS/2 held territory that they are readers of OS/2 e-Zine!, itself?

Why?

Why do this self-proclaimed Windows 95 enthusiast and gamester feel the need to read OS/2 e-Zine!, rather than engage in gaining even more knowledge at a Windows 95 site?

Why does The Truthman send Ominor, via the earthly medium of electronic mail, the last entry recorded in Ominor's Chronicles? While The Truthman should be grateful that The Inhuman restored him fully, after their last... encounter, this desire to pursue Ominor to the halls of OS/2 e-Zine! in order to express his gratitude is... unique, to say the least.

What could possibly cause such concern in the face of the oncoming Windows NT juggernaut, a product destined to change the way one uses one's computer? Only Ominor knows for sure, yet, even a mortal may make a reasonable presupposition. Doubtless, it is a credit to the efforts of Servitor Trevor Smith that his magazine attracts the most vocal advocates of Windows 95 to his forum.

And what of OS/2 Independent Software Vendors? "How well fare thee?" asks Ominor. Very well, indeed.

The Inhuman must say, he is impressed by the commitment to excellence and technical support displayed by two of OS/2 Warp's Independent Software Vendors. First, John Ominor has decided to test an application whose importance has seemingly declined in this age of ever growing permanent storage media. Ominor is, of course, speaking of ZipStream v1.20 from Carbon Based Software.

ZipStream is an installable file system that mirrors access to your existing OS/2 file systems while providing automatic transparent file compression and decompression. Ominor is sure that even the most feeble of mind are familiar with the basic concept due to the high visibility of software such as PKZip, Stacker, DCF/2, and InfoZip's Zip/Unzip utilities.

The Inhuman is satisfied with the elegance of ZipStream. First and foremost is its flexibility. Since ZipStream compresses on a file by file basis, as opposed to placing all files in a large hidden volume, it allows one to place compressed and uncompressed files on the same partition. Truly innovative. John Ominor will refrain from a more detailed analysis of ZipStream in order to concentrate on the reason why Ominor has honored Carbon Based Software in such an unorthodox manner.

The Inhuman is very impressed by the customer support exhibited by the makers of ZipStream. Ominor has been engaged in a series of electronic mail correspondences with Carbon Based Software in order to test their knowledge of their product. Ominor expected Carbon Based Software's awareness of their product to be eclipsed by The Inhuman's own matchless omniscience and He was not disappointed, yet, Ominor found them competent.

Carbon Based Software answered all The Inhuman's questions correctly and gave The Inhuman notice of future design issues with OS/2 Merlin. In addition, when Ominor discovered a problem with ZipStream (a small one, to be sure), Carbon Based Software provided a fix within twenty-four hours. Of course, John Ominor is The Inhuman, yet even lesser beings would most likely get comparable service.

The next Independent Software Vendor to gain Ominor's favor is Joel Krautheim of SPG. Ominor has made it no secret that the excellent demonstration version of ColorWorks v1+ aided The Inhuman in creating FORTRESS Ominor, and will play an even more important role in the third incarnation of The FORTRESS. The Inhuman has found Servitor Joel Krautheim to be responsive and respects the Servitor's willingness to defend his product. Ominor is also pleased by this Servitor's willingness to interact with his customers.

Finally, once again, a fortunate Servitor has been allowed the honor of supplying The Inhuman with some bit of property purchased via the Internet. Ominor is pleased that all his on-line transactions have concluded in such a satisfactory manner. Add to this the number of personal web pages comparable to the ColorWorks Power Page which are aiding OS/2 Neophytes in the use of OS/2 and its applications, and one will notice a most exceptional trend.

So? What does this mean? What is this trend? Let us review...

Windows advocates continue to feel the need to disparage OS/2 despite its so-called imminent death.

OS/2 Independent Software Vendors continue not only to survive, but to thrive, expand, and provide hands on service.

OS/2 user-originated support continues to broaden and expand.

Most importantly, John Ominor, The Inhuman continues to support OS/2.

You may draw your own conclusions. May they match those of The Inhuman.

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