the Beta File

Welcome back to the Beta File, your source for the latest breaking news in OS/2 beta development. Every month we scour the OS/2 world to bring you interesting news of OS/2 software in development. If you have a product that you're sure is going to be the next killer app, or you want a little free exposure for your beta test drop us a note!

Have you been picking away at a keyboard for years, struggling through with typing skills you learned playing Tetris or some other keyboard-oriented game? Wait no longer, a native OS/2 typing tutor is now in beta testing.

IcaruSoft has released its first betas of its new software, Type/2, and updates are coming fairly quickly. Primary developer, Ernest Christley tells us that Type/2 is an OS/2, PM based typing tutor. It will feature support for QWERTY and Dvorak keyboards, multiple lessons, and the ability to add lessons. Sounds like they have all the bases covered.

There is no web site for the software at this time, but the beta test has been in progress for about three months or so with approximately 10 testers. Those of you with poor typing skills are free to sign up too. Just download the file 'type2b2.zip' from Hobbes and e-mail the author to join.

IcaruSoft anticipates a Christmas '96 release date for the shareware program and somewhere around a US$20 price tag (although that is not settled yet). Christley tells us:

IcaruSoft is currently a small company trying to get bigger. Our one goal is to root out software categories where there is a need for native OS/2 software and produce solid products to fulfil that need.

If you are more interested in your system's security than the speed with which you interact with it, this next beta program may be for you.

Ken Kahn has just released the Warp 4 upgrade to his popular BOOTOS2 utility. In his own words, "For those brave of heart and foolish of mental capacity, I've made available a version of BOOTOS2 (v7.76) that should work with the new WARP 4 (aka Merlin)." The beta is open to all (as you can tell); just pop over to lscftp.pok.ibm.com and grab the file BOOTOS2.ZIP. All that is required of testers is that they report successes or failures with the code to the author.

BOOTOS2 is a set of utilities that allows Warp users to set up minimal installations on their hard disks for use as maintenance or emergency partitions. Most functions, including support for TYPE=PM and WPS installs are available in this release. The only function familiar to users of the Warp 3 version of BOOTOS2 that was not working at the time of this writing was 2DISK. The author is working on a fix for this though and it may well be complete by the time you read this.

This latest release is fairly new (late October) so you can be one of the first to try it out. BOOTOS2 for earlier versions of Warp has been around for some time though. As an indication, this is v7.76 of the software, so don't expect the beta program to last forever. BOOTOS2 is freeware.

As we head into November, the good news is that Lotus will finally be releasing Word Pro 96 (just in time for '97) for OS/2. The beta test of this product is just now wrapping up and users can download the beta code from Lotus' Web page. Be warned though, this is hefty beta code. It is basically the entire word processor (and you know how big word processors are these days) and there are six different compressed files to grab. Be prepared to take some time.

Also, users of Warp 3 will need to install a special FixPak 23 in order to be able to run the beta. This FixPak can be found on the Lotus Word Pro page. Warp 4 users do not need to do this.

As we mentioned, Lotus still claims that they expect to have Word Pro 96 released by the end of this year. Since we now have less than two months in this year, that means any day now so if you want to do a little beta testing, get it now before it goes Gold.

The beta (and the final release) of Word Pro are chock full of features for group work and Internet publishing. In keeping with IBM's view of networked computing, this should be the word processor to own if you collaborate with others or publish Web pages. Final pricing had still not been set at the time of this writing.

The other component of the SmartSuite that Lotus is about to finish is Freelance Graphics. This presentation graphics program has been available for OS/2 for some time, like the rest of the SmartSuite, but until now it has been lagging in its feature set. This release promises to update the OS/2 version to be competitive with the more robust Windows versions.

As with Word Pro, final pricing has not yet been set. Lotus is very aggressive though so we expect lean pricing. Freelance will initially ship with Word Pro for OS/2 and the Win3.x versions of 123, Approach and Organizer on CD ROM only.

At this time, the beta code available for Freelance will not install on Warp 4. Lotus is attempting to work out the problems with IBM and assures us that the final version will install on Warp 4 without problems. For those of you with Warp 3 running, you will need the FixPak 23 "Special Edition" before you can grab the five compressed installation files.

The remaining OS/2 SmartSuite applications, including 1-2-3, Approach, Organizer and ScreenCam, are scheduled for the first half of 1997. All SmartSuite applications are promised to have common features and file formats with their Windows counterparts, and native OS/2 features to make OS/2 users feel at home on their platform of choice.

It's about time!

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