[Please note: this is a text only version of the on-line magazine, OS/2 e-Zine!.  OS/2 e-Zine! is a graphical, WWW OS/2 publication and, if possible, should be viewed in its HTML format available on-line at http://www.os2ezine.com/ or zipped for off-line reading.  Some graphically oriented articles have been removed from this document.

For best reading of this ASCII version of OS/2 e-Zine!, use a text editor at full-screen width.]


OS/2 e-Zine!		June 16, 1997			volume 2, number 6
----------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 1997		Falcon Networking  		ISSN 1203-5696

                  "Half a million readers and growing!"


OPINIONS:

  From the Editor
  Chris' Rant
  Java, Java, Java (by Brad Wardell)

 
DEPARTMENTS:

  the Beta File
  Answers from e-Zine!
  News from the OS/2 World
  Chris' ColorWorks Powertips
  Object Desktop Tips
  The Need for Speed
  the REXX Files
  How Do I?


REVIEWS:

-Feature-
PlusPak: PMINews
    SouthSide Software developed it, Stardock Systems published it
    and you have been waiting for it.  Now, finally, OS/2 e-Zine!
    gives you the news on the newsreader that everone has been
    anticipating.

-Software-
The Graham Utilities v2 - Jurgen Assfalg
DeskMan/2 v2.0 - Ryan Dill
Commander for OS/2 v2.24-4 - Pete Grubbs
moneyplex v1.0 - Marco Steinbach 

-Hardware-
Hewlett Packard Vectra - Chris Williams 

-Games-
Quake for OS/2 - Colin Hildinger
Nethack for OS/2 v3.2.2 - Colin Hildinger 


READER SURVEY

Results from our May Survey
Find out what your fellow readers told us last month! 

Do you use Win-OS/2?
Answer these 4 simple questions and find out how you compare to other OS/2 users. Results will be printed next month! 


CELEBRITY CORNER

The Technical Interchange Report - Rollin White
Each month, OS/2 e-Zine! brings you IBMers, ISVs, OS/2 industry personalities, and celebrities to share their opinions and more! This month, Sundial Systems' Rollin White gives us a tour of the premier OS/2 conference of the year. 

ARTICLES

Setting up a WWW server - Jorge Martins
Jorge tells us how to set up a cheap and efficient WWW server using OS/2.

Little Helpers - Eric Slaats
Eric discusses some small tools that make a developer's life much easier. 


END NOTES:

  Hot Sellers - the top 15 selling OS/2 apps from Indelible Blue.
  Hot Sellers - the top 10 selling OS/2 apps from J3 Computer Technologies.
  Hot Sellers - the top 10 selling OS/2 apps from BMT Micro.


ODDS & ENDS:

* How to Subscribe to OS/2 e-Zine! for FREE.
* How YOU can Sponsor OS/2 e-Zine!
* The Sponsors that Make this Issue Possible


Copyright 1997   -   Falcon Networking
ISSN 1203-5696

***********************************

The Wintel World

-----

Many OS/2 users who have been unable to decide between a Pentium- or Pentium Pro-based computer have had their decisions made even more difficult.  Intel recently continued its march of market domination with the release of its new "Pentium II" CPU.  Known to many by its preproduction code name, "Klamath", this newest speed demon from the world's largest desktop CPU maker promises once again to stave off the wolves (IBM, Cyrix and AMD) nipping at Intel's market share heels.  It does this primarily, of course, by being fast, fast, fast.  But it also gives Intel some breathing room by virtue of its new single-edge contact (SEC) cartridge design which will force many motherboard manufacturers to rework their products and will probably cause Intel's competitors to scramble to modify their own CPUs.

But it's not the fancy new hologram-bespangled packaging of the Pentium II that should concern OS/2 users, it's what's inside -- or rather, what went into what's inside.

To understand why I have reservations about a chip that will most likely run OS/2 faster than anything else on the planet, we have to consider a bit of recent history:

Throughout its existence, Intel has introduced increasingly faster generations of its CPUs at fairly regular intervals.  By and large, these new generations were introduced with exorbitant prices and targeted at money-laden corporations that just had to get their numbers crunched 25% faster.  As competitors came close to matching Intel's best chips' performance (or sometimes bettering it), Intel would slash the price of its flagship product and introduce the "next great thing".  As the former high-end chip dropped in price, it became widely adopted as the industry standard.

The above story ignores some market factors, but it describes most of Intel's CPU product history.  With one significant exception.

Late in 1994, the competition was gaining ground on Intel's Pentium CPUs so Intel was readying their new class of product, the Pentium Pro.  This chip was a great step forward in many ways, borrowing design characteristics from RISC technology, bettering the speed of previous processors, and including a ton of L2 cache right on the chip.  And, most significantly for those who had already joined the '90s, due to its new architecture, it was especially adept at running 32-bit operating systems and code.  In short, if you were using a real 32-bit OS, this chip was the fastest thing going.

At the same time that Intel was finishing the Pentium Pro's design though, Microsoft was "finishing" its newly renamed operating system, Windows 95.  Microsoft had long been promising that Win95 would be a great leap forward in both interface and architecture, notably calling it a 32-bit OS.  Naturally, Intel -- Microsoft's most ardent bed-partner -- was set to capitalize on the release of this wonderful new OS with the release of their new chip which would run 32-bit OSs very well.

Except, of course, the hype from Microsoft was -- ahem -- a little less than completely accurate.  Windows 95 was largely a step forward and certainly contained much new 32-bit code, but early on in its life, reports came flooding in that it contained chunks of old, pre-Win95 (read: 16-bit) code.  This was proven conclusively when Win95 was run on Intel's powerhouse Pentium Pro chips.  The new 32-bit chips choked on the new "32-bit" code.

Now, choked is a relative term, of course, and by no means did Win95 run slowly on a Pentium Pro -- nothing runs slowly on a Pentium Pro.  But Win95 ran more slowly on the Pentium Pro than on the plain old Pentium.  As you can imagine, this was a big problem for Intel.

Intel might have just held its breath and waited for the world to move to Windows NT (which did run faster on the Pentium Pro than on a classic Pentium); Microsoft certainly told them and everyone else that we all were moving there.  Instead though, Intel saw the writing on the wall.  The market was moving (like it or not) to Win95 and not to WinNT, at least not in any hurry.  If Intel wanted to remain at the top of the heap, they had to come up with a chip that would run 16-bit code even faster than its current Pentiums.  MMX technology is an offshoot of this need; the Pentium II is another.

And as we all know, most users of Intel-based PCs are still running either DOS/Win3.x or Windows 95.  They are not running a wholly 32-bit OS and, therefore, have never purchased Pentium Pros in droves.  For the first time in Intel's history, its flagship CPU has failed to become the CPU of choice for the mainstream market.  In fact, the Pentium Pro has been available since November 1995 and has now been supplanted by the Pentium II but the majority of computer users still have never seen one in action.

Since this is the computer industry, Intel can't sit still and wait for consumer OSs to catch up with its chips.  Two years is a lifetime, as they say, and some other chips such as the AMD K6, have matured quickly, and are ready to challenge Intel's top of the line CPUs.  Intel realized some time ago that they had to make a move quickly, and they did.

Hence the Pentium II.  In many ways another great leap forward from Intel.  But in some ways a leap backwards too.  Intel needed to improve the speed with which its high end chips ran Win95, and since Win95 is not wholly 32-bit that meant temporarily forgetting about all the 32-bit advances of the Pentium Pro and going back to the 16-bit drawing board.

Intel did (of course) succeed in retrofitting the Pentium Pro architecture to handle Win95's legacy code in a more speedy manner.  According to PC Mag (vol. 16, no. 11), the new 266-MHz Pentium II performs roughly half again as fast as a Pentium Pro when running Win95 tests (designed to measure 16-bit code execution in the CPU) and faster than either a classic Pentium or a Pentium with MMX.

But what does Intel's research and development on the Pentium II provide for OS/2 users?  Nothing.  First, Intel invested time and money improving its chips.  Then, they invested more time and money moving them backwards, retrofitting them to run 16 bit code faster.  This isn't going to help many OS/2 -- or WinNT -- users.

The fact is, Microsoft's failure to live up to its claims that Win95 would be fully 32-bit have hindered Intel's ability to move the computing industry on to a better and faster chip design.  Instead of moving forward wholeheartedly with a great chip (the Pentium Pro), Intel was forced to divert some of their energies that could have been better used to further improve the 32-bit code execution of its products.

And it's not only Intel that is focussing its energies on making chips to run an antique operating system.  By all reports, AMD's K6 chip is comparable to -- if not faster than -- a Pentium II when running Win95.  In other words, it is squarely aimed at knocking off Intel's Win95-centric products, not the Pentium Pro line.  The entire industry is obsessed with running a 16-bit OS faster and is less concerned with running 32-bit OSs faster.  This is the state of the art in the late 1990's?

Again, don't misunderstand me.  I realize that the new Pentium II roars with speed on Win95, WinNT or OS/2 -- 16-bit or 32-bit OSs -- and I realize that it is good for us as well as good for Windows 95 users.  It's just not as good as it might have been if Intel had not been forced to refocus its energies.

This is just one more sad example of how Microsoft's market dominance has prevented the computer industry from accomplishing what it could have.

***********************************

Corporate Sponsors of OS/2 e-Zine!

-----

(http://www.bmtmicro.com/) BMT Micro
Your complete source for over 175 of the best OS/2 shareware applications available.  Drop by today and check out our WWW catalog or download the .INF version.

(http://www.ChipChat.com/os2ezine) ChipChat Technology Group
ChipChat produces excellent 32-bit OS/2 software for wireless text paging and state-of-the-art multimedia Sound Cards for Micro Channel PS/2 computers.

(http://www.fx.dk/) F/X Communications
Home of the top selling (http://www.fx.dk/injoy/) InJoy dialer, ranked #1 in worldwide OS/2 shareware sales (Jan-97).

(http://www.indelible-blue.com/ib/) Indelible Blue
Indelible Blue, a mail order company, provides OS/2 software and hardware solutions to customers worldwide.

(http://www.os2store.com/) J3 Computer Technologies
Serving the Global OS/2 Community, large and small!

(http://www.kellergroup.com/) Keller Group Inc.
Developers of FaxWorks for OS/2 and PMfax, the fax and voice solution for OS/2, with versions for stand-alone, LAN and Internet Faxing.

(http://nick.secant.com/mr2ice.htm) MR/2 ICE Internet Email Client
Delivering the electronic mail features of the future, today.  A product of Knightware Software Company.

(http://www.mensys.nl/indexuk.html) Mensys
The one place to go in Europe for all OS/2 Warp software.

(http://www.pcs-soft.com/) Perez Computing Services
Defend against desktop freezes with Ctrl-Alt-Del Commander and create online documents/help with the IPF Editor.

(http://www.prioritymaster.com/) ScheduPerformance, Inc.
Dramatically improve performance on your OS/2 system now with the patented priority scanning logic and visual priority identification of Priority Master II.

(http://www.softouch.com) SofTouch Systems, Inc.
Home of the bestselling set of disk and desktop maintenance products for 
OS/2: GammaTech Utilities, UniMaint, and FileStar/2!  ---- Your System's Safe and Sound with SofTouch Around

(http://www.stardock.com/) Stardock Systems
Providing quality software for the home and office.

***********************************

Chris' Rant	- by Chris Wenham

-----

The computer industry today is in a really sorry state of affairs.  When it should have been out of its infancy years ago it is still, in fact, flubbing up repeatedly and acting like a baby.  It thinks it is making advances when it shows off faster and fancier toys, like a toddler building a bigger pile of bricks, but it still hasn't learned any of the basic, fundamentally necessary attitudes to carry it through life -- such as building a pile of bricks that won't fall over with a swish of the hand.  Ladies and gentlemen, this is a 50 year old baby we're talking about.

Let's see, moguls love to compare the computer's development with that of the automobile industry, saying that if car technology advanced at the same rate as silicon we'd be driving Chevys that push 20,000 miles per hour and can circle the earth on a 50 cent tank of gas.  They fail to say, however, that if auto safety and stability standards kept up at the same rate as those in the computer industry, we'd be slaughtering ourselves in death-mobiles that claim a few hundred thousand an hour.

Or again, just a few days ago I was in a conversation with someone who wanted to brush away Windows 95's tendency to crash as an unimportant thing.  "Hey if your car broke down one day you probably wouldn't think it was such a big deal.  You wouldn't take it back to the dealer for a refund, you wouldn't write a letter of complaint to the manager of the company, you wouldn't refuse to ever buy that brand again, now would you?"

"I guess not," I mumbled.  Now I've thought it over more carefully though; if your car broke down two or three times a week, if the steering suddenly stopped working in the middle of the highway, or the brakes stopped working on your way down a hill, or you pushed the brake pedal and nothing happened until ten seconds later, what then?  I betcha that if you came out of it alive you would go back to the dealer and demand your money back, you would write a strong letter of complaint to the manager of the company, and you would refuse to buy that brand ever again.

PC users put up with this every day though.  Crashes that happen two or three times a week on average, often more for many Windows users.  A mouse that stops working suddenly, a keyboard that goes unresponsive for no reason, or clicking on a menu option and waiting through 20 seconds of disk churning before the instruction is actually carried out, are not uncommon.

Have you ever been watching TV to find the picture suddenly freeze and the next frame slowly appear line-by-line as a light on the bottom glowed and a steady grinding noise came out of the case?

Or have you ever set your microwave for a slow defrost and discover that it strangely kicked into HIGH and ruined your food?

Ever so early in the automobile industry's history, we got cars that were cheap and easy to use, where the most complex part of understanding them were the road laws.  Get in, grab the steering wheel, turn the key, shift the gear, push the pedal and it goes.  I defy you to find that same simplicity with a modern PC.

The typewriter, like the early auto, was blissfully simple; insert paper, press keys.  The PC is ridiculously complex; turn on, wait for boot, click on start, click on programs, click on Microsoft Office, click on Microsoft Word, wait three minutes, start typing, wait fifteen seconds, see your words, type a bit more, select file, select save as, pick a drive, pick a directory, make up a filename, click "OK", click file again, click setup page, select Hewlett Packard LaserJet, pick resolution, pick 600dpi from the list, click "OK", wait for printer to warm up, load the paper, select file, select print, select 'All', click "OK", wait five minutes, watch the document get printed.

BAH!

You buy a PC today and it comes with an awesomely advanced microprocessor (inhibited by a CISC-to-RISC translator wrapper), a massively capacious hard drive (wasted by a file system designed in the late 70's for floppy disks), a roaring fast local bus (retarded by the compromises of an ISA bus it still has to support), and gobs and gobs of memory (swallowed up by dancing paperclips and .wav files of giggling schoolgirls).  The operating system it comes preloaded with is a mishmash of 16-bit and 32-bit code that wastes thousands of clock cycles thunking data back and forth and runs terribly on any chip that takes the initiative of actually being optimized for modern 32-bit software.  Or you get the industrial strength version of the OS, one that's supposed to be rock solid, but because it was too slow for the current state of affordable hardware the designers had to compromise it and stick the GDI in the Kernel system -- where a bad device driver can blow it all up (hah! Given that you can find device drivers.)

Either way you still have to download and install a new patch every month to fix a security hole that never should have been there in the first place.  In the meantime a malicious web page just erased all your data, a hacker just grabbed all your passwords, your neighbor with the same cable modem service as you saw what you downloaded last night, and that 14 year-old punk on IRC has been crashing you daily with an OUT OF BOUNDS packet.

So you buy a Mac, and you've got decent hardware with a decent operating system, but you can't get any new software because the parent company is the lost twin of Commodore and all the developers have fled fearing imminent collapse.  (Worse yet, that database guy you saw featured on Oprah keeps threatening to buy out the company every 6 months or so and turn it into a maker of semi-dumb Internet terminals.  Woah, gee, there's a booster shot of confidence.)

So you're a user who's fed up with the circus and you want to get something safe.  A computer that only breaks down maybe once or twice a year, is as easy to use as an automatic transmission and gets you to all the places you want to go.  Sorry, chum, there's no such animal.

And this secluded corner of the world called OS/2 that you thought was a haven is growing scruffy by the inattentiveness of its groundskeepers.  It's an exciting and fertile piece of ground but the Kings and Queens never walk here, meaning that nobody grows the really beautiful blooms, and nobody builds the really majestic marble fountains.

And I'm scared -- really scared.  Because we are losing what little we've got.  We're not able to (or just won't) support the ones who are supporting us.  Companies desperately pressed for cash are turning to the only market they think they can get it from, writing off OS/2 as a loss.  Don't think the old, "We'll make our money selling Windows software, but keep writing OS/2 apps because you've been so nice to us," line carries any weight.  That's a romantic fantasy.

This industry has got to grow up!  Chairman Bill Gates is seriously trying to turn "PC technology" (an oxymoron) into the do-all, be-all monster that replaces every server and every workstation on the planet.  This is lunacy!  Hasn't anybody noticed this?  Are we really going to throw away our Indy stations and RS/6000's and replace them with the descendant of a toy that was made as juvenile as possible to prevent it eating into IBM's mainframe sales?  Good grief!  Someone slap this baby on the bum and knock some sense into it.

I still love OS/2 and I still have it as the only operating system installed on this PC, even though it shares many of the same failings that most other operating systems do.  There are just too many reasons for me not to give it up (and I'll talk about some of those next month).  But I am really not looking forward to the next 10 years of computing if it's going to stay on the same stupid, wrong-way tracks that I've described.  We are going to be fooling ourselves if we think the next faster CPU is going to make us any more productive than we already are.  

It's not the chips or bits that matter, it's the attitude, it's the whole design philosophy.

-----

(http://www.spectra.net/~fox/) Chris Wenham is a freelance web designer, writer and Englishman who now lives in Endicott, NY.  In the past he has written comedy, sci-fi, Pascal, Rexx, HTML and Gibberish.  He has been using OS/2 exclusively for the past 2 years.

***********************************

Java, Java, Java	- by Brad Wardell

-----

Java, Java, Java.  That's all I hear about.  Every weekly trade magazine I pick up has news on some great Java announcement.  As users of these wondrous technologies, how great is Java?  Is it really useful?  Is the future going to be Java?

The answer from my standpoint is a mixed "Yes."  I think Java is here to stay, but do I think we'll all be running Java based office suites in a couple years?  No.  I've been playing with Java off and on for several months now and my opinion of it largely depends on the day and the program and the VM (virtual machine).

The press can easily make Java look great because they only have to show screen shots.  Look at the screen shots here, they sure look cool don't they?  But the performance of Java can be abysmal.  Even on OS/2's latest released VM, Corel Office for Java was too slow to be usable -- even on a Pentium.

The question we ask really should be, "Where is Java useful?"  Currently, we have multiple proponents of Java who see it useful in different ways and their combined song makes it sound like Java is the universal answer.  Those who don't use Windows 95 or NT see it as a way of getting major application support.  Administrators see it as the next big thing for zero administration clients, either through PCs, NPCs, or NCs.  Still others see it as a way of making intranet and Internet web access very useful.

I happen to be more a part of the latter camp.  Java on a web site can add some real functionality.  In a few years when TV and PCs start to merge to create some sort of media appliance (PCs will live on but there will likely be a separate Media Appliance market) Java could become a significant force in creating interactive applications that are hosted from your local cable company.

But as stand alone applications that replace things like MS Word or Word Pro or PhotoShop, I don't think that's going to happen.  Cross-platform products have been done in the past and they are always at a disadvantage to native apps because the native app is free to take advantage of any unique features available on the platform.  If the OS market was splintered like it was long ago, a cross-platform Java application strategy would be great.  But if 95% of the PC market is using Win32 programs, what's the point in Java applications?  How many companies are willing to sacrifice anything to make the OS/2, Unix, Mac, and BeBox people happy?

That's not to say that there are no cases where a Java application makes sense -- there are.  I simply don't see Java's strength in being able to deliver conventional applications.

From an IS department standpoint, Java can make sense as the ultimate intranet application server.  This is where I think a lot of money will come from.  Companies will want to be able to control exactly what their users see and use on their machines.  A big bank, for example, may want to keep track of customers and can have a Java application that runs on a high-end server with users running PCs or NCs.  If a change is made to the application, it's just the server program that needs to be changed.  The IS manager just needs some PC programs that keep their users from being able to "Escape" the Java browser.  Both Microsoft and IBM are working on ways to deeply integrate their respective OS's into the intranet world.  Anyone who thinks IBM isn't behind OS/2 only needs to look at what IBM is doing -- making OS/2 able to run these apps on OS/2's already strong underpinnings.

Java has a strong future, but be careful  not to be lead astray by the hype.  Java has some real strengths but not necessarily in the areas you may think.

-----

(bwardell@stardock.com) Brad Wardell is the founder and President of (http://www.stardock.com/) Stardock Systems, one of the leading developers and publishers of OS/2 business and leisure software.

***********************************

the Beta File	- by Ryan Dill

-----

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, (feedback@os2ezine.com) drop us a note!

                              *  *  *

This month, we begin with an event many of you have no doubt been waiting for -- the first international beta of (http://www.stardiv.com/) StarDivision's StarOffice 4.0 for OS/2.  StarOffice is a MS Office clone which is available on multiple platforms, among them OS/2 and Linux.  StarOffice comprises a full suite of applications including StarWriter (word processor), StarCalc (spreadsheet), and StarImpress (graphics design), and promises to be a major contender in the OS/2 market.  This version of StarOffice includes Internet integration for e-mail and news, as well as Internet publishing capabilities, making it extremely easy to create content and send it right to the WWW.

The beta program is open to all who are interested, all one has to do is download the beta from StarDivision's (http://www.stardiv.com/download/index.html) international SO4 beta site, and away you go.  The beta will be functional until August 31, 1997, at which time it will expire, so download and try it out while you can.  SO4 is expected to sell as a commercial application, price to be announced upon release.

                              *  *  *

Moving right along, last month I was debating about sticking in a mention of the alpha version of IBM's Home Page Builder -- HPB is a new What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) HTML editor for OS/2, AIX and Win95/NT, developed by IBM Japan.  At the time of the alpha, only the Japanese version was available -- although its setup file could be hacked to display menus and such in English, help files and demo HTML were still only in Japanese.  But since it was still "alpha" at the time, it really didn't fit in the Beta File last month.

Now, however, that's changed.  The people at IBM's Developer Connection have tidied up the alpha a little and released it as HPB Beta 1 on the IBM Developer Connection CD-ROM.  For all of those who aren't subscribed to the Developer Connection, the people at DevCon are being nice enough to provide a downloadable copy of the beta (as long as you register for it).

If you'd like to download the Home Page Builder beta and give it a try, follow these steps:

1. Use your web browser to go to (http://service.software.ibm.com/devcon/) http://service.software.ibm.com/devcon/
2. Select 'View License Agreement' (and read it, of course)
3. Select 'English'
4. Select the 'HTML 1.0' catalog (It's faster than the frames and Java page)
5. Select 'Internet Tools, Member Level'
6. Select 'Home Page Builder' (not Home Page Publisher)
7. Select 'register'

Once you have been given a user ID and password, return to the 'Home Page Builder' page and select the 'download' button.  After your user ID and password are verified, the beta of Home Page Builder will download directly to you.

Previously, IBM had stated no intention of producing a non-Japanese version of the software.  Seeing it now in the DevCon program may mean they're listening to all the users who expressed interest in a non-Japanese version.  If you write any HTML at all, I recommend you try out Home Page Builder -- if you like what you see, be sure to submit positive feedback to IBM and make it clear that you're interested in an international version.

As of yet, no mention has been made of expected release date or final pricing.  I would assume that since IBM doesn't make many shareware applications, it will be a commercial application.

                              *  *  *

For anyone who uses their computer for creating music, a new product called Agathon PM Synth might hold some interest.  PM Synth is a program which uses the MIDI instrument capability of your sound card to turn your computer into a MIDI keyboard -- you can compose music, record and play it back in multiple channels (up to 16), or save your creations and continue adding to them later.

The first beta of Agathon PM Synth was not widely distributed, but this second beta is freely downloadable by anyone who wishes to try it out.  More information and download links can be found at the (http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~haraldei/software.html) Agathon home page -- the archive can also be found on Hobbes and LEO.  Agathon PM Synth is freeware (and according to the author (haraldei@stud.ntnu.no) Harald Eilertsen, will most likely remain so).

One caveat -- the program requires RTMIDI to be installed; in Warp 4, RTMIDI is installed by default if you install multimedia.  RTMIDI also requires a sound card which supports it, which not all cards do.  Most notably, Sound Blaster and Aztec cards are out of luck.  For more information on RTMIDI, check out (http://www.io.com/~timur/rtmidi.html) Timur Tabi's RTMIDI page.  Eilertsen includes a list of sound cards Agathon PM Synth has been tested with on his home page above.

                              *  *  *

Nick Knight, the man behind the popular MR/2 ICE e-mail client, has announced that work on his newsreader extensions to MR/2 ICE are progressing nicely.  At this point, he's prepared to expand his current beta program, allowing more users in on the testing process.  To date, the beta program has only been open to registered users of MR/2 ICE and Nick plans to keep it that way for this expansion.  Since MR/2 ICE is shareware though, nonregistered users will still be able to try the program out when the testing process is complete.

If you're a registered user of MR/2 ICE, are not currently in the newsreader beta program and would like to be, send an e-mail to (nick@secant.com) Nick Knight with the subject line: "Newsreader Beta Expansion".  He'll no doubt let people know when his expansion slots in the beta program are filled.

More information about MR/2 ICE can be found at the (http://nick.secant.com/) MR/2 ICE home page where there are links to just about everything related to the program, including add-ons and FAQ listings.

                              *  *  *

(http://www.innoval.com/) InnoVal Systems is currently putting out the call for beta testers for their newest Java product, Hacksaw.  Already available in Win95/NT and OS/2 platform-specific versions, InnoVal is developing the Java version so that anyone on any platform supporting Java can use this Internet tool.  The Java version will be available both as a regular tool (a program, like the Windows and OS/2 versions) and as a toolkit which will allow easy development of Java-based Internet applications.

For those unaware, Hacksaw can be used to greatly simplify many Internet-based operations, such as e-mailing mailing lists, multiple file downloads, and the update of web sites.  More information on Hacksaw can be found at (http://www.innoval.com/hacksaw/) the Hacksaw web site.  According to InnoVal:

"Hacksaw takes FTP to a new level of simplicity and sophistication.  Imagine updating your site with a single command.  Hacksaw can retrieve web pages and other web-based files using the HTTP protocol.  It can send e-mail messages to a single address or to an entire mailing list through an SMTP server.  It can retrieve, count, and delete any or all messages waiting for you on a POP3 mail server."

The Hacksaw toolkit (Hacksaw TK) on the other hand, is intended for developers who wish to write Internet-based programs in Java.  Again, in InnoVal's words:

"The HACKSAW TK class library is ideal for anyone who wants to write 100% pure Java applications and utilities that use standard Internet/intranet protocols and file formats.  It includes time-tested methods (ported from C/C++) for high performance data transfer and robust error recovery, essential elements for successful Internet/intranet applications."

The Java versions of both Hacksaw and Hacksaw TK are expected to be out sometime this June for beta testing -- InnoVal is allowing anyone who has purchased a copy of the Windows or OS/2 Hacksaw product to beta test the Java versions free of charge; other users may also be permitted to enter the testing, but not necessarily for free.  To find out more information about the Java Hacksaw beta program, send an e-mail message to (hackbeta@innoval.com) hackbeta@innoval.com, specifying which Java platforms you have access to.  Note that Hacksaw requires a copy of the  1.1-level Java Development Kit, and will not work with the 1.02 JDK.

-----

(dill@os2ezine.com) Ryan Dill is a student in Computer Science at Acadia University in Wolfville, NS and one of e-Zine! 's assistant editors.  He is reported to be relieved that, with the advent of Warp 4, talking to your computer is no longer considered a sign of mental instability.

***********************************

Answers from e-Zine!

-----

Welcome back to your source for answers to all your OS/2 questions!  Each month we bring you tips, tricks, questions and answers from our readers and contributors.  If you've got a question or tip you would like to share with us, (feedback@os2ezine.com)send it in!

-----

Q -- I think it's really great that OS/2 comes with fax software and since I have a separate fax line, I want to set up my fax modem to operate as a full time fax machine.  Is there any way to make FaxWorks Lite automatically start in "answer all calls" mode?

A -- Unfortunately, there is no way to get the version of FaxWorks Lite that ships with OS/2 to start in auto-answer mode, but the full retail version can do this.

Assuming you have FaxWorks or PMfax v3.0 (they are basically the same product but named differently depending on who markets them),  just add "-R" in the Parameters field of the program object's Properties notebook.  This will cause the program to start in "answer all calls" mode.

Now put a shadow of the PMfax object in your Startup folder and every time you boot OS/2, the program will start, ready to answer incoming faxes.  If you need to order PMfax, you can find more info at (http://www.kellergroup.com/) Keller Group Inc.'s web site.

                - (feedback@os2ezine.com) OS/2 e-Zine! Staff

-----

Q -- I have been using my Microcom 28,800 modem with Warp 3.  The COM.SYS device driver did not support 28,800 throughput on the modem, so I resorted to using SIO.SYS (the shareware utility).

I now have Warp 4 installed and I am still using SIO.SYS.  Has the COM.SYS driver in Warp 4 been updated to handle these faster speed modems?

A -- The answer is, "yes, it now works."  The 28.8 kbps speed is now supported with a throughput of 115.2 kbps bus-to-modem speed.  However, you can usually run a 28.8 modem at 57.6 kbps without any problems.

I've been running my 28.8 modem with the stock COM.SYS drivers in Merlin (aka Warp 4) since I bought it and have had no problems (except for some noisy phone lines around my house, but that is another story).

                - (bgreen@ksu.edu) Brian L. Juergensmeyer

-----

Tip -- Many people ask us how they can start certain OS/2 applications minimized.  There is a trick that will accomplish this but it is not immediately obvious.  Basically, you have to check the "Start minimized" checkbox on the "Session" page of the object's Properties notebook.  But, of course, OS/2 automatically grays out this checkbox for all valid OS/2 program objects, preventing you from clicking it.

So how do you select this option?  First, go to the "Program" page of the notebook and delete the file name from the "Path and file name" field (or just delete a few characters from it).  This will prevent the notebook from finding a valid EXE file and temporarily "confuse" it, making the "Start minimized" and "Close window on exit" checkboxes on the "Session" page available.  Switch to the "Session" page, check the "Start minimized" button, switch back to the "Program" page, fix or reenter the file path and name and you're all set to have the program start minimized.

Note though, this method can still be foiled by conscientious programmers.  Some applications save their windows' size and position each time they are shut down, recreating the same size and position when they are next run.  If this is the case, this information may override your "Start minimized" instruction.

                - (feedback@os2ezine.com) OS/2 e-Zine! Staff

-----

Q -- I have two files, DOOMOS2.ZIP and DMOS2_19.ZIP.  The first is Doom for OS/2 (NOT the DOS version but the real port) v1.6 while the other is v1.9.  The v1.6 file runs like a charm but the second always crashes a few seconds after I start it.  However, it runs long enough for me to read the opening message that it is a BETA of Doom for OS/2, written by id Software and ported by IBM (and that the file is not to be copied).

When I call id Software and IBM, no one knows anything about it (I get the old, "Call the other guy -- he'll know about it.").  What's up with Doom?

A -- From (http://www.ionet.net/~colin/games.html) The Ultimate OS/2 Gaming Page:

The first file is the v1.6 beta of Doom for OS/2 which was ported by Softport (formerly
WinWare Corporation).  This version didn't use DART or FSDIVE (Full Screen DIVE), but instead used the normal MMPM/2 and DIVE.

The second file is the v1.9 port which does take advantage of FSDIVE and DART.  In fact, Jim Thomas, the person who did the port, tells me that Doom/2 is now finished except for the networking code.  However, don't expect an "official" release from IBM, id, or anyone else any time soon.

Note that if you're running Warp 3 you'll need to install the DART subsystem to run the v1.9 beta, which may be why this file crashes on your system.  My advice is to get Warp 4, which includes DART, but you can install FixPak 26 for Warp 3 and the Netscape for OS/2 plug-in pack instead.

Or the crashing could have something to do with an incorrect version number.  The v1.9 beta will die when the demo starts if you run from a .wad file that isn't the correct version.  The solution to this problem is to start the game before the demo starts.

For those who don't have the latest copy of Doom for OS/2, which has been patched to eliminate the expiration date, it is now available from (http://www.ionet.net/~colin/dmos2_19.zip) The Ultimate OS/2 Gaming Page (ZIP, 670k).

                - (colin@ionet.net) Colin L. Hildinger

-----

Q -- I've been using OS/2 and its GUI PPP dialer for two years now.  Unfortunately, with the popularity of the Windows 95 operating system, my ISP decided to switch its server to automatic authentication that is compatible with Windows 95.  Since last weekend, I can no longer log on from home using OS/2.  Is there a solution for this?  I booted Windows 95 and it logged on just fine but my preferred system is still OS/2.

A -- The answer to your problem, unfortunately, is to switch to another dialer.  I use InJoy v1.1 which is available at (http://www.bmtmicro.com/) BMT Micro.  It's a very good dialer; it lets you define several programs (FTP, Browser, e-mail) to run automatically at startup.  As I remember, it's not very expensive either.

                - (bsmith@ccis.com) Bob Smith

-----

That's it for this month.  If you have a tip or question that you don't see covered here, don't forget to (feedback@os2ezine.com) send it in!

***********************************

News from the OS/2 World	- by Ryan Dill

-----

No news is good news, but some news is even better.  Greetings all, to e-Zine! 's newest feature, a place to find all the latest important happenings in the OS/2 world.  This column is the result of many of you over the past few issues having asked for a regular news column in e-Zine!, one which could cover certain topics in more detail than our (http://www.os2ezine.com/news.htm) News Folder does.  We still believe our News Folder can't be beat when it comes to up-to-the-minute, accurate information, but it usually contains more "official" things like press releases and stuff.  This column will go into a bit more detail than the News Folder about things we think are of interest to OS/2 users everywhere.

                              *  *  *

To start this month, we have a number of things relating to Netscape Communications Corp: many of you already may have heard that Martin Warnett, perhaps the most publicly known member of the Netscape for OS/2 team, is moving on to a new project at Netscape, unrelated to OS/2.  This means he will be leaving Netscape Communicator in the hands of his peers.

When the Navigator project gave way to the Communicator project, Mike Kaply (from IBM) took over lead of the team from Martin.  The team assures us that Martin's leaving should not affect the delivery schedule of Communicator.  (I guess that means it was behind anyway. <grin>)  Personally, I'm hoping to see the beta of Communicator/2 by the beginning of next month at the latest, but "hoping" is the key word.

Martin Warnett has been a great person to have working for OS/2, and we wish him all the best in his new position.  Hopefully he'll remain an OS/2 fanatic no matter what OS he uses next.

For those of you who had been playing with the Windows 3.1 version of Communicator in WinOS/2 and were irritated that pre-releases 4 and 5 had Winsock problems which prevented domain name resolving -- good news.  The word from Martin as it shipped was that the latest release of Communicator for Windows 3.1 has this problem fixed; domain names should resolve fine now.

If you want to try it out and get a sneak peek of what Communicator for OS/2 could look like, you can download it from (ftp.netscape.com/pub/communicator/4.0/shipping/english/windows/windows3.1/) Netscape's FTP site.  If you have any problems getting it to run, make sure you've followed all of the (http://www.oeonline.com/~mandie1/winsock.html) DOS/Win TCP/IP tips at Judy's Warped World.

If you've been irritated that Netscape hasn't yet produced a more secure version of NavOS/2 for on-line transactions, don't be.  Netscape finished the 128-bit secure version of NavOS/2 months ago and gave it to IBM.  IBM has been hung up ever since, trying to find a way around the US export restrictions on the security algorithms in the browser.  Is it just me, or does it seem strange that Netscape doesn't have any problem with export restrictions when they market 128-bit secure versions on other platforms?  Why doesn't IBM just do what Netscape does?

Anyway, if you need the 128-bit version for on-line banking or whatever, IBM has a list of customers who are waiting for it; as soon as IBM finds some way around the export restrictions, the people on this list will be first to get a copy.

The person to contact at IBM about getting the 128-bit version is (dbandera@us.ibm.com) Debbie Bandera -- she'll forward your messages on to the correct person at IBM and make sure your name's on the list.  Hopefully when IBM sees how many people have a legitimate need for the more secure version of NavOS/2, they'll work harder at getting it out the door.

                              *  *  *

What are you doing on the 25th and 26th of October?  Nothing?  Why not plan to attend "Warpstock"?  "Warpstock?" you ask, "What's that?"  Well, to put it briefly Warpstock is an event -- heck, it could be the event -- for OS/2 users.  Like Woodstock was for the peace and love generation, Warpstock is intended to be a gathering place for those of like mind -- fellow OS/2 users.  The event is intended to be a place where you can learn more about your favorite OS, share experience you have that others don't, find some good deals on OS/2 software, and have an all-around good time.

To be held on October 25th and 26th of this year in the AQMD Headquarters in Diamond Bar, California, Warpstock promises to be one of the largest events of its kind OS/2 users have ever seen.  Want to know more?  Check out (http://www.warpstock.org/) Warpstock's web site for information on who's going to be there, what they'll be doing, where you can stay, and so on.  You can even volunteer, and be able to bask in the awe of fellow OS/2 users!  Don't take my word for it though -- check the info out for yourself.

                              *  *  *

Now unfortunately, some bad news...  Sources have confirmed to us at e-Zine! what many people have been fearing for a while now: the QuickTime for OS/2 project may be discontinued.  Some say the problem lies in Apple's current financial difficulties; money is getting to be tight at Apple and to stay alive the company has to cut back on spending, which means that many of its non-core technologies and projects are being dropped, including QuickTime for OS/2.  Other sources claim wildly different scenarios.

Whatever the case, legal representatives from Apple and IBM are still working out the details, and an official announcement will be made once all issues are resolved.  (This could be days, it could be weeks.  Who can tell?)

Thankfully, the OS/2 market still has (http://www.practice.xo.com/) Practice Corp. and their QuickMotion software.  Tom Harding of Practice assures us that work on QuickMotion v2.0 is continuing and its playback capability could even surpass QuickTime code on other platforms.  As long as there's a demand in the OS/2 market to work with QuickTime content, QuickMotion will be around, Tom says.

                              *  *  *

(http://www.innoval.com/) InnoVal Systems Solutions is making version 2.5 of its popular OS/2 e-mail client, the Post Road Mailer, free!  That's right, free.  "Why?" you ask, "what's wrong with it?"  Nothing at all.

InnoVal is in the process of rewriting the Post Road Mailer in a cross-platform Java version, and they want people to know about it.  Their reasoning is that people will try the free PRM, see how powerful it is and when the Java version comes out, customers will snap it up like hotcakes.  Good reasoning.

The free edition of the Post Road Mailer is feature-for-feature identical to the Professional edition released earlier this year, the only differences being:

1. No technical support is offered (and frankly, the people at InnoVal feel it's so easy to use you won't need much support anyway); and

2. The license only permits its free usage for personal or home-business use, not for large business and corporate use.

In the words of InnoVal's Dan Porter:

"We've had a problem telling people how strong Release 2.5 is.  Customers who upgraded know this.  But others do not.  Knowing this and knowing that we want to get the word out about our Java e-mail client that will be delivered later this year, we chose to offer the free edition.  The Java version does not mean that we are walking away from our native
OS/2 mailer.  In fact, the next release is already in the works as is a minor maintenance release, v2.51.  The Java version is the model for new and outstanding features that will be built into future native OS/2 releases."

Porter claims that the upcoming Java version of the Post Road Mailer is so powerful that it will surpass any mailer currently available for any platform, including InnoVal's own PRM 2.5.  It will include the features which made the Post Road Mailer so popular in the first place in addition to new ones such as a choice of user interfaces, and multiple address books.

More information about the free version of the Post Road Mailer can be found on (http://www.innoval.com/free/) InnoVal's Free PRM page.

                              *  *  *

That's it for this month.  If you have a tip that you want followed up or a news item you think should be reported, don't hesitate to (feedback@os2ezine.com) let us know!

-----

(dill@os2ezine.com) Ryan Dill is a student in Computer Science at Acadia University in Wolfville, NS and one of e-Zine! 's assistant editors.  He is reported to be relieved that, with the advent of Warp 4, talking to your computer is no longer considered a sign of mental instability.

***********************************

Chris' ColorWorks Powertips	- by Chris Wenham

-----

Painting with Masks

In order to improve the quality and scope of tips presented in this column, this month will mark the last that I focus specifically on ColorWorks.  Starting in July I'll be exploring other graphics software for OS/2 in addition to just ColorWorks.  Quite often I'll be talking about using several different programs together on one project, harnessing the best features of each to supplement the ones missing from others.  To give you an idea of what's to come, I'll be using Embellish for a small task in this month's column.

Masks can be downright handy for creating images that use multiple patterns or that combine multiple source images together in a controlled manner.  ColorWorks 2.0 introduced the ability to use 8-bit masks, which were like the existing protection masks except that it could handle up to 256 levels of opacity.  Painting with an opacity gradient is very similar to an 8-bit mask (and in fact is pretty much like an instant 8-bit mask) where the strength of the effect you're painting with diminishes as the gradient gets weaker.  You'll see an example of this later on too.

To get a visual idea of what they do, let's start with a simple mask to 'stamp out' multicolored copies.  Here we have a simple black-n-white negative image of a movie star.

This image was saved as an 8-bit mask from the File.Save Resource.8-bit Mask menu.  After that I switched to a blank canvas, chose Effects.8-bit Mask and picked Miss Monroe from the menu, making sure the mask was set to Tiled.  After a bit of playing around with the rectangle tool and some colors I was done with the finished image seconds later:

(This will go well framed and hung next to my Boulevard of Broken Dreams picture...)

What you can see here is that anywhere on the mask that was white is where color showed through when we painted.  Black areas on the mask allowed no color to be applied at all.

Since it's an 8-bit mask we could also have had gray areas, where color would have shown through with one of 254 different levels of opacity.  This is what makes the 8-bit mask really powerful, because it's those subtle shades of gray that are used to smooth out the edges of lines and make them appear less jaggy.  (Also known as anti-aliasing -- you've heard me harp on about that before, and you will again in the future, I promise).

The following is an example where I have taken some crisply anti-aliased text from Embellish and defined it as a mask in ColorWorks to re-create the same effect I did for the (http://www.os2ss.com/) OS/2 Supersite's title graphic.

I started with a source image that was a simple evening photograph of a city skyline (Seattle, if you must know).  First I made a copy of the canvas and started reddening the hues using the Effects.Tune Image Colors.Color Balance effect.  This became the source image for the lettering.

Opening (http://www.dadaware.com/) Embellish I created the text to be used in the final image.  Embellish's anti-aliasing is much better than that in ColorWorks, in my opinion.  All that was needed to transfer the image between the two programs was a simple cut-n-paste.  Once in ColorWorks, I pasted two copies into the workspace, used Effects.Tune Image Colors.Invert to invert the second copy and then save it as an 8-bit mask.  The original black-on-white text was passed through the Image.Plug-in Effects.Motion Blur effect, using down and left motion of 10 pixels to give me a shadow.

Next up was to create a new canvas of the same width and height as our source image of the skyline.  Using the gradient and cloning effect (the cloning effect picked while the focus was on my original source image of the skyline) I painted to the new canvas with the full-canvas too, making a faded out copy of the skyline.

Onto this faded skyline, a floated copy of the "MEGASITE!" text shadow is pasted with the If Darker setting of the Edit.Float Merge Control dialog.

Now the important part with the mask: all effects are first cleared, then the inverted 8-Bit mask of the text I made with Embellish is selected.  With the red-tinted version of the skyline selected I apply the Effects.Clone effect.  I switch back to the canvas where I've been assembling components and just paint that cloned image on with the full canvas tool.  Since that 8-bit mask is switched on, the cloned image is painted in exactly the right place, complete with crisp and professional looking anti-aliased edges.

As mentioned, stay tuned to future columns for more cool multi-application graphics tricks to make your work really shine.

-----

(http://www.spectra.net/~fox/) Chris Wenham is a freelance web designer, writer and Englishman who now lives in Endicott, NY.  In the past he has written comedy, sci-fi, Pascal, Rexx, HTML and Gibberish.  He has been using OS/2 exclusively for the past 2 years.

***********************************

Object Desktop Tips	- by Alexander Antoniades

-----

WarpCenter: Just Say No

Reviewing the entries to the Object Desktop screen shot contest, we were amazed by how many people were still using WarpCenter even though they had Object Desktop.  While WarpCenter is appealing to many since it comes with OS/2 Warp 4.0 and it is one of the first new features that most people see, we'd like to recommend a different solution: use Object Desktop's Control Center instead.

Control Center, unlike WarpCenter, is a collection of Workplace Shell classes that has been tested on every version of OS/2 since 2.11 and works fine on all of them.  The early WarpCenter had some stability issues that I understand have been fixed by FixPak 1 for Warp 4, but there are still problems due to the way it was implemented.  Therefore, our developers have always recommended removing and using Control Center instead.  The raw functionality of the WarpCenter can be duplicated by a modified Control Center, so replacing it should be relatively painless.  Additionally you'll have Stardock there to help you out.

Favorite overlooked components in Object Desktop:
#1 The Keyboard LaunchPad

Due to its invisible functioning and the fact that screen shots never showcase it, people often overlook what is probably the most versatile of Object Desktop's program launch facilities.  The Keyboard LaunchPad allows you to associate one (or more) objects with any unmapped key combination.

Using this utility you can make CTRL-ALT-M launch your favorite e-mail program or make CTRL-ALT-H go to hobbes to get the latest files.  Many Stardockers have cleaned up their Desktop to the extreme by using this approach, to the exclusion of all other file launching methods.

The only downside to this is that there aren't any easily accessible drop points for keyboard-only launched objects such as drives or folders, so you still might want to keep shadows of them on your Desktop for that purpose.

RAR and TAR support for Object Desktop

Towards the end of last year Stardock released the Object Archive Compression Plug-in Pak v1.0 to thank all of the Object Desktop customers for making 1996 a great year for Stardock.  This patch for Object Desktop extended the power of Object Archives to include RAR compression and archive format, TAR Unix archive format, GZIP-ed TAR files (compressed), Compressed TAR files, and Z Compressed TAR files.

This extension is a free upgrade for users of Object Desktop 1.5 (both regular and Professional).  To get it all you have to do is fill out a web page questionnaire located at  (http://www.stardock.com/signup/) http://www.stardock.com/signup/.

Note: You will need to get some freeware executables in order to run this, but there are links to get these files on the page that you download the patch from.

That's all for this month.  Until next time, don't forget to send in any unique or interesting ideas for using Object Desktop to make your system work better.

-----

(sander@stardock.com) Alexander Antoniades is the former Associate Editor of OS/2 Magazine and the current Vice President of Marketing at Stardock Systems.

***********************************

The Need for Speed	- by Jon Cochran

-----

A Tale of Two Buses

Throughout the ages, one question has plagued man, that being "What is the meaning of life?"  More recently, a similar question has plagued the realm of computer users, it being "SCSI or IDE?"  Chances are, if you're debating that question, you're either planning a massive upgrade, or building an entirely new computer.  Why's that, you ask?  We'll get into that later.

IDE and SCSI are two different bus architectures used to communicate with storage devices.  IDE (which stands for Integrated Drive Electronics) is by far the oldest of the two sometimes being older than that teenager who shows you how to use your computer.

IDE, being as old as it, suffers from many limitations.  First of all, IDE can't support more than two devices, and for the most part, those devices can only be hard drives (although there are ways around this).  Second, IDE is not designed for a multitasking environment, and can't support more than one disk I/O request at a time.  Third, IDE is just plain slow.  Even hoping for the best, IDE would probably top out at around 2MB/Sec.  Fourth, and most crippling, IDE can't support devices over 528MB (1024 cylinders) in size.

In 1995, EIDE made its debut on the scene.  Of all the refinements in EIDE (Enhanced IDE), the biggest improvement was support for hard drives over 528MB.   Second, a variety of devices (notably CD-ROMs and tape drives) were now supported.  Third, multiple I/O requests were supported by the EIDE standard.  And EIDE was faster than regular IDE as well.  Some EIDE adapters rate themselves as having a transfer rate of 14MB/sec, but only in a "burst mode", which means, it can only obtain that speed after it "revs up".

On the other side of the ring stands SCSI (Small Computer Standard Interface).  SCSI was, and is, everything that IDE is not.  Originally SCSI could support roughly 7 devices on a single adapter, but that number has since increased.  The Original SCSI bus could transfer roughly 5MB/Sec.  A later improvement, FAST SCSI allowed for around 10MB/sec.  Even later, Fast & Wide SCSI appeared, and it had roughly double the speed of FAST SCSI (but it required a different cabling system).  SCSI also supports multiple I/O requests, which makes it ideal for multitasking systems (it's more robust in this area than EIDE is).

With all the advantages SCSI seemingly enjoys, you may wonder why it hasn't taken the computer world by storm.  One simple reason: price.  SCSI was (and still is) more expensive than IDE.  With the advent of EIDE, the advantages of SCSI narrowed, and its main calling became heavy duty server applications.  A simple EIDE interface can usually be bought for about $30.  A simple SCSI interface will cost roughly double that.  A SCSI CD-ROM is also much more expensive than its IDE counterpart, ditto for a SCSI hard drive.  When you add everything up, you may end up spending a couple hundred dollars more than you intended.

EIDE is, and will remain for some time to come, the dominant standard for personal computers.  Almost any computer you buy off the shelf has an EIDE adapter built into the motherboard.  With this kind of proliferation, the standard is hard to avoid.

If you're planning a new computer, the decision is a simple economic one.  If you want the extra performance, and are comfortable paying for it, do it.  If you're buying an off the shelf computer, you're probably going to be stuck with EIDE.

Will you notice a big difference, or any difference?  For most people the answer is, "probably not."  But now that you know your machine could be just that much faster, don't you want to start flipping through back page ads of SCSI peripherals and dream?

-----

(cochran@genius.rider.edu) Jon Cochran is a full time student at Rider University majoring in History/Secondary Education.  He hopes (or at least his parents do) to graduate soon.

***********************************

The REXX Files	- by Dr. Dirk Terrell

-----

This month, let's look at some of the REXX input and output functions.  If you are learning REXX, it won't be long before you want to create and process files.  REXX offers a couple of ways of reading and writing data files.  One is by processing a set number of characters at a time and the other is processing one line of text at a time.

Functions that deal with characters (bytes) rather than lines begin with "CHAR" such as CHARS, CHARIN, and CHAROUT.  The CHARS function returns the number of characters that can be read from a file.  If you have not yet performed any operations on the file, it will return the size of the file in bytes.  If you have already performed read operations on the file, it will tell you how many characters are left.  To use CHARS simply pass the file name as a parameter like this:

Number_of_Characters=CHARS("c:\config.sys")

CHARIN and CHAROUT are used to read and write
characters.  CHARIN uses the following syntax:

data=CHARIN(file,start,number)

where data holds the data read in, start is the starting position in the file to perform the read operation, and number is the number of characters to read.  If you do not specify file, then standard input will be used (i.e., the program will wait for the user to type in data).  If you do not specify start, the next available character is the default starting point.  If number is larger than the number of available bytes, CHARIN will read the remaining characters.  If you want to read an entire file into memory, you can combine the CHARS and CHARIN functions like this:

data=CHARIN(file,1,CHARS(file))

The CHAROUT function writes characters to a file:

rc=CHAROUT(file,string,start)

Again, file is the file to write data to (standard output, the screen, is the default), start is the character position in the file to begin writing, and string is a string containing the characters to write.  The function will return the number of bytes that are left to be written.  Normally it will be zero unless some sort of problem occurred.

Functions that deal with line input and output begin with "LINE".  These functions read or write lines of data delimited by the end-of-line sequence which is a carriage return and linefeed pair (ASCII 13 and ASCII 10).  If you need to read one line at a time from a file, this is your function.  Use it as follows:

data=Linein(file,line,count)

where file is the file name.  The parameters line and count seem to have limited functions.  Setting line to one will move the pointer back to the first line in the file (like a rewind), and setting count to zero will cause LINEIN not to actually read anything.  Setting count to numbers greater than one will not cause it to read multiple lines though.  Most of the time, you will probably use LINEIN by specifying just the file name.

LINEOUT will write a line of data to a file.  The calling form is:

rc=LINEOUT(file,string,line) where file is the file name, string is the string to be written, and line can be set to one if you want to begin writing at the beginning of a file.  One thing to note about this function is that it appends lines to a file if it already exists.  If you want to overwrite a file, you must explicitly delete it (using SysFileDelete from the REXXUTIL library) before using LINEOUT.

The LINES function is somewhat similar to the CHARS function.  It will return a one or a zero depending on whether or not there are lines left to be read in from a file.  For example, to read in all the lines of a file, use this code:

/* Count the number of lines in a file
   and store them in a stem
*/
Parse Arg File
i=1
time1=Time("E")
time1=Time("R")
Do While LINES(file)
   Data.i=LINEIN(file)
   i=i+1
End
time2=Time("E")
ET=Time2-Time1
Say "It took" ET "seconds to read the file."
Say "There were" i-1 "lines in" file
Exit

Note the use of the STREAM function to explicitly close the file when we are finished reading the data.  Failure to close files is a common source of problems for beginners.  There are a limited number of file handles available on your system, and you will run out of them if you fail to close files when you are finished reading from or writing to them.  If you are having a problem with a REXX program that processes many files and it seems to do the first few of them and then just quits, chances are you are forgetting to close files.

The choice between using the CHAR functions or the LINE functions boils down to exactly what you want to accomplish.  The LINE functions are very convenient for processing text files like e-mail messages and news postings, but you will find it slow if the files are large.  A more efficient way of reading large files is to read them in large chunks with CHARIN.  Compare the times it takes for the above program to read the data file with this one:

/* Count lines in a file */
Parse Arg File
crlf=d2c(13)||d2c(10)
Time1=Time("E")
Time1=Time("R")
Data=CHARIN(file,1,CHARS(file))
Time2=Time("E")
ET=Time2-Time1
Say "It took" ET "seconds to read the file."
rc=Stream(file,"C","Close")
i=1
Do While Data<>""
   Parse Var Data Data.i (crlf) Data
   i=i+1
End
Say "There were" i-1 "lines in" file
Exit

You will find that the latter program reads the data file much faster because it reads the file in bigger chunks, which allows OS/2 to buffer the input more efficiently.  Depending on how many parsing instructions have to be executed, it may be faster to use this method.  Note that we explicitly added the carriage return and linefeed pair after reading the data because we used them as the parsing token.  You'll also see that we used a variable Data and a stem variable Data. without any complaints from REXX.  To REXX, they are two different variables.

The REXX input/output functions are flexible, and for the most part, intuitive.  You can even use them to perform input/output operations on devices like the COM ports.  A couple of years ago, I wrote a REXX program that controlled a modem using the CHAR functions.  With a small amount of code, you could write a program to transfer files between two computers with a null modem connection between their serial ports or control your printer through the parallel port.  Once again REXX shows its ease of use wrapped around powerful capabilities.

-----

(http://www.gnv.com/HTMLWizard/) Dr. Dirk Terrell is an astronomer at the University of Florida specializing in interacting binary stars.  His hobbies include cave diving, martial arts, painting and writing OS/2 software such as HTML Wizard.

***********************************

How Do I?	- by Eric Slaats

-----

Hello Again.  My column two months ago generated a lot of mail.  Not my "How Do I?" column, but my article about hardware wrestling.  I guess a lot of people are experiencing the same troubles as I am.  I also found that hostile hardware is not an exclusive OS/2 problem.  All platforms I have tried have given me the same problems, so I guess there's hope after all.

A lot of the replies I received were about using Delphi in OS/2.  I tried to answer them all, but some mail messages bounced back.  So here's a reply to all those people asked about it.

Q -- Where did you get the patch to use Delphi under OS/2?

A -- I guess I wasn't specific enough.  I found something that can recompile Delphi programs to OS/2 PM programs (which is far more exiting than creating WIN/95 programs under OS/2).  The disadvantage of this approach is that the code still has to be built under Win/95 or Win/NT.  I haven't been able to get it running due to lack of time, but here's what I found:

One of my students has a subscription to a German magazine, CT (Computer Technik).  Besides the fact that all the articles are written in German (no problem for Dutch people, but I guess native English speakers might have a problem) it's a very good magazine that regularly runs OS/2 stories.

One of the writers there is Matthias Withopf.  He's a real genius in meddling with EXE formats and compilers.  He's the one that patched Borland Pascal 6.0 for DOS to produce OS/2 EXE's.  He'd written an article in CT (Oct/96) about a way to convert the Borland C++ 2.0 compiler for OS/2 (and the freeware GNU compiler) in such a way it will compile Delphi code to OS/2 PM programs.  I don't know if his article is available in English but it's called "Delphi meets Wunderkind".  The file in which the Delphi patch can be found is CT9610.zip (this file contains more stuff from that issue of CT) and I got it from a German FTP server at (ftp-uni-paderborn.de/pub/ct/) ftp://ftp-uni-paderborn.de/pub/ct/.

-----

Enough about my last column, back to business.  It's getting harder and harder not to make this column too difficult but I still aim at the beginning PM programmer.  So if you're starting to have problems reading or understanding this column, please let me know.
 
Time for something new!  As I promised last time, we will take a look at something different than the frame control.  This month, we will begin a small series about how to create and use dialogs.  The dialog is a very important and flexible way for PM programs to obtain input.  Also, dialogs can be created with drag and drop tools.

The PM has a number of default dialogs like the file open dialog, the font dialog and the message boxes.  This series will also be used as a stepping stone for future columns in which exciting controls like notebooks, containers, etc. will be handled.

What will be handled this month:

o  Parent/owner concepts for windows
o  Modeless dialogs
o  Modal dialogs
o  WinMessageBox API call.

A dialog box / WinMessageBox

What exactly is a dialog?  A dialog box is a child window of the main application window in which user interaction is obtained that can not be handled through menus.  I know this definition isn't exactly watertight; the sub-windows in an MDI (Multi Document Interface) could also be viewed as dialogs with this definition.  So to make things clearer, here are some examples of typical dialog-boxes:

o  The find/replace dialog of the e.exe editor.
o  The message boxes that appear to tell you an error or some other event has occurred.
o  The OS/2 file open/save dialog.
o  The OS/2 font change dialog.
o  In general, the about boxes of applications.

Very often a dialog is used to tell the user something, display an error, ask the user if the current action must be continued or canceled, etc.  It would be time, space and performance consuming if we had to make a dialog for every one of these simple tasks an application has to perform.  This is why there are two default dialogs built into the OS/2 API, WinMessageBox and WinMessageBox2.  The second of these is a more sophisticated version of the message dialog that can be modified in a large number of ways (check it out, it's fun).

For this article we'll use WinMessageBox to show the behaviour of dialogs.  The API call for WinMessageBox looks like this:

HWND     hwndParent;  //  Parent-window handle
HWND     hwndOwner;   //  Owner-window handle
PSZ      pszText;     //  Message
PSZ      pszCaption;  //  Titlebar text
ULONG    idWindow;    //  Window ID
ULONG    flStyle;     //  Window style.  
ULONG    usResponse;  //  User-response value.
 
usResponse = WinMessageBox(hwndParent, hwndOwner,pszText, pszCaption, idWindow, flStyle);
 
To create a message box, we first have to know which windows will be parent and owner of the dialog.  We delve into that in a moment.  The message we pass to the user must be specified in pszText which will contain the text that is shown in the window body of the message text.  The way WinMessageBox handles this text is really done very well.  If this text needs several lines to be displayed, OS/2 simply splits the text at the most convenient point and resizes the height of the box to accommodate the text.  This is very convenient since in systems with different resolutions, the text length may vary.  OS/2 will make sure the text in the message box is displayed correctly.

The pszCaption string defines the text in the title bar.  I usually use one or two words to describe the dialog's purpose.  Something like "ERROR!" or "Warning" will do fine.  Note that if the title bar text is too long, it will simply be clipped.

The idWindow isn't that important for what we are doing this month.  It's an ID that is passed to the help system if the help button (if we defined it that way) is pressed on the message box.  Since we won't use it here, we simply fill in a 0.

The flStyle is next.  Here's a parameter I like; with this one we can completely control the way the message box works.  The way this works is much like the way we define the FCF flags for a frame window.  We simple or (|) together a number of flags and the result is put into one integer which is dissected by the system to display the box in the way we want.

WinMessageBox knows the following identifiers to define the buttons on the message box:

MB_OK                OK button.  
MB_OKCANCEL          OK and CANCEL buttons.  
MB_CANCEL            CANCEL button.  
MB_ENTER             ENTER button.  
MB_ENTERCANCEL       ENTER and CANCEL buttons.  
MB_RETRYCANCEL       RETRY and CANCEL buttons.  
MB_ABORTRETRYIGNORE  ABORT, RETRY, and IGNORE buttons.  
MB_YESNO             YES and NO buttons.  
MB_YESNOCANCEL       YES, NO, and CANCEL buttons.  
MB_HELP              HELP button.

As a regular user of OS/2 you may have noticed that some message boxes contain bitmaps to identify the sort of message box that is displayed.  The following identifiers are used to display an icon on the message box.  Note that only one of these identifiers can be used.  If more are used, the result may be unpredictable.  You'll also note that there are several ways to display the same icon.  The deeper reason for this is unknown to me.  

MB_ERROR             Red circle with a red line across it.
MB_ICONASTERISK      Information (i) icon.
MB_ICONEXCLAMATION   Exclamation point (!) icon.
MB_ICONHAND          Red circle with a red line across it.
MB_ICONQUESTION      Question mark (?) icon.
MB_INFORMATION       Information (i) icon.
MB_NOICON            Message box is not to contain an icon.
MB_QUERY             Question mark (?) icon.
MB_WARNING           Exclamation point (!) icon.

The next group is the so-called modality indicator.  What modal and modeless means will be explained later on.

MB_APPLMODAL         Message box is application modal.
MB_SYSTEMMODAL       Message box is system modal.
    
Finally we have the Mobility indicator.  We can define a message box so that it can't be moved.  This results in a message box that has no title bar.  If we want the user to be able to move the message box, we need to define the MB_MOVEABLE ID.  

So, if we want to create an error box, we could do the following:

WinMessageBox(hwndParent,
              hwndOwner,
              "An error occured!",
              "ERROR!"
              MB_OK | MB_ORROR);

Modal and Modeless dialogs

Dialog boxes can be used in a number of ways.  In fact that's the core of this month's column.  If you regularly use an OS/2 application, you know that there are dialogs that pop up and have to be closed before you can access any other window of the main application.  Examples of this are most "about" boxes and the file open dialogs in the e.exe and the Smalled editors.  There are also dialogs that stay on top of the application, but let you use anything the application has to offer.  Examples of this are the find/replace dialogs in most editors.  Dialogs with these behaviours are referred to as Modeless and Modal dialogs, respectively.

A Modal dialog will restrict the user's interaction to the current (dialog) window.  The user can not interact with other windows of the application.  With message boxes, we can go one step further and make the box system modal.  This means the user can't interact with anything else on the system besides the box.  An example of this is a system error message.

Modeless dialogs, on the other hand, will let the user interact with all the other windows on the system/application.  Depending on the parent (see next section), the window will stay on top of the application, even if it isn't active.  (Check out this month's sample for a display of this behaviour.)  In the (http://www.os2ezine.com/v2n6/sample8.zip) sample this month (ZIP, 16k) we don't check if a dialog is already active.  Because we can interact with the main window, we are able to start numerous instances of one dialog.  In my opinion this is a common error.  We'll see how this can be fixed somewhere along this series about dialogs.

Owned and Parented

It didn't surface before in this column, but every window that we create will have a parent and an owner.  For example the Client window in the small applets we build until now has the Frame window as parent as well as owner.  These concepts are important because, to a large extent, they define the way windows behave.

What's a parent?

The most obvious task a parent has is to control where a child window will be visible.  Child windows will be 'clipped' to the parent window.  This means if you want to move a child window beyond the borders of the parent, the part that will 'stick out' of the window won't be visible.  (Check the sample this month for an example of this behaviour.)  This also means if we want to be able to move the dialog all over the Desktop, the parent can't be the current application's Frame window.  We need to use the Desktop window as the Parent.  For this, OS/2 has the default HWND_DESKTOP constant that can be used as the hwndParent.

A child window will also inherit all the styles a parent has.  This means that if a parent is visible, the child will be visible.  This can easily be checked by hiding the Sample8 applet.  If a dialog is open, it will also be made invisible along with the parent (frame) window.  A child will also move with the parent if the parent is moved.  Again, this can be easily checked by moving sample8 when a dialog is open.  Finally, a child will always be on top of the parent window.

The existence of a child window also depends on the existence of the parent.  If a parent is destroyed, all the children are also destroyed.  Of course this is logical, since if there is no parent, the child has no place to present itself.

What's an owner?

The "duties" of an owner window are much the same as the duties of a parent window.  The owned windows are destroyed, hidden, or minimized with the owner.  The most important difference is that owned windows aren't clipped to their owner.  This means owned windows can move beyond the borders of the owner.

Another notable difference is that there is communication between owner and owned windows.  The owner will get a WM_CONTROL message with the mp parameters telling the owner which dialog sent the message and what happened.  We will delve into this in a future article.

The sample for this month contains a very simple program that shows the behaviour of dialogs in several settings.  For this, WinMessageBoxes are used.  Next month we'll dive into dialogs more deeply.  At that point we will create our own dialogs and take a first look at dialog handling procedures.  And, of course, Modal and Modeless dialogs will reappear.

-----

(eric.slaats@pi.net) Eric Slaats holds a degree in Computer Science and teaches computer technology in Eindhoven.  He is the creator of the (http://www.bmtmicro.com/catalog/smalled/) Smalled utilities.

***********************************

PlusPak: PMINews for OS/2	- by Chris Wenham

-----

PlusPak: PMINews is a beautifully elegant, flexible and powerful newsreader for OS/2 that was built by the same guys that brought you PMMail and distributed by the same people behind Object Desktop, Trials of Battle and PlusPak: Themes.  The user interface is a dream, Agent-like and consistent throughout the program, but it is tragically spoiled by one problem: it was released too soon.  More on that later.

Installation

PMINews uses the standard IBM Installation program we've all come to know so well.  Users of PMMail will want to change the default installation directory to the one where their other SouthSide product(s) are kept (by default C:\SouthSide, but in my case it was D:\Applications\Southside) since this will help PMINews integrate with PMMail better.  I found that you don't need to worry about PMINews overwriting or changing any of your PMMail settings, either as you install or uninstall the product.

A tour of the interface

The best part of PMINews by far has to be the user interface.  It matches PMMail remarkably well with similar icons, menu structure and window layout.  Many standard features of PMMail are reflected almost identically in PMINews, such as filters, signatures, read and composition windows, settings notebooks and more.  The program uses the style of newsreader layout pioneered by Agent for Windows with a split window, storing newsgroup lists on the left side and article lists on the right.  However, unlike Agent, users of PMINews can not rearrange the layout to some other scheme and the Read window is separate, not integrated as a frame of the main window.

PMINews also handles subscribing to newsgroups a wee bit differently from most other news readers.  Instead of having a master "Subscribe" list, the user must first create one or more Grouplists in which subscribed groups will be ordered.  These Grouplists, along with the Server list, are arranged in a vertical tabbed notebook in the left side of the main window.  Each Grouplist has its own tab so you can flip back and forth through them quickly and easily.  Each Grouplist also has its own individual configuration that is independent from all the others.  This means you can have different sets of signatures, filters, killfiles, mail settings, sorting priorities an so on for each Grouplist you create.

This can be both powerful and inconvenient at the same time.  Your "Binaries" Grouplist could have the "Binaries only" filter enabled that removes any article less than 100 lines long, but this won't affect any other newsgroups that you have put in a different Grouplist with a different set of active filters.  You have twice as many settings to keep track of.  You can't share filters between Grouplists, nor can you share signatures or killfiles.  Usually, given the nature of Spammers to hit thousands of newsgroups at once, you'll want the same killfile to be active in all groups you subscribe to.  But with PMINews there is no set of global filters available.

There is another really useful feature that waits quietly and persistently beneath the Tabbed newsgroup book though: a filter entry field.  Type any string into the box, click the button or press enter, and PMINews will trim a huge 27,000 newsgroup listing down to only those that contain the string you just typed.  Clear the filter and the full newsgroup listing is brought back again.  For example, say you typed "os2" and pressed enter; you'd immediately get a listing of every OS/2 newsgroup available on that server.

Multiple server support

Multiple server support is handled very well indeed in this release of the program.  With PMINews you can mix newsgroups from different servers into the same Grouplist and read through them transparently -- you literally do not have to worry about what newsgroup is on which server, and do not have to disconnect from one before you can connect to and read newsgroups from another (all the connecting and reconnecting is handled for you in the background).  This was especially handy for me since I need to keep track of three different servers (a long story, but it involves my ISP dumping the alt. groups and hiring the services of Supernews -- a company with an ungodly amount of hardware and bandwidth).

PMMail Integration

Even though PMINews was developed by the same company that made PMMail, there is surprisingly little integration between the two.  The interfaces are remarkably similar, of course, but I was disappointed with how little each program shared with the other.  The address book is shared -- pull it up from the tools menu and you'll see that it has all the same addresses in it as your PMMail address book, if you have one.  Likewise, if you change or add to the address book in PMINews, the changes will be reflected in PMMail's address book and vice-versa.

It's also possible to drag-n-drop an article from PMINews' article list to a folder in PMMail's mail account tree.  (If the article hasn't been downloaded yet, PMINews will do so before it gets dropped into the PMMail folder.)  This way one can store articles easily as well as reply to them using PMMail's facilities instead of PMINews'.

This is about where the integration ends, though.  You can not share or import signatures from PMMail, nor can you share filters, canned replies or mail server configurations -- several things I would have liked to import into PMINews.  It is possible to cut-and-paste signatures back and forth between the two programs, but this is not really an elegant solution.

Filters

However, the filtering capabilities of PMINews are really exceptional.  Being almost identical to PMMail's filtering abilities makes it easy to get up to speed if you're already a PMMail user.  The filters can use either simple queries (search for strings in places like the subject or poster's name) or SouthSoft's ICSL (Internet Communication Search Language) that gives you considerably more flexibility when it comes to searching for keywords or matching patterns.  Actions to be performed on a match include coloring the text to make the article stand out, removing the article, downloading the article, printing, forwarding, or replying with canned replies -- almost any function of the newsreader is available.

PMINews will also automatically create filters for you on the fly, since the killfiles and "Mark replies to your posts" features are both implemented this way.  In fact, if you're looking for a "Killfile" tab anywhere in the Grouplist settings, you'll find it by clicking on the "Filters" tab.  When you add a poster or subject to the killfile, a filter is automatically created or updated here.  I found that this was actually a very elegant solution and gave the user much more flexibility and power than EmTec Newsreader's killfile ability.

A couple of example filters are provided to give you a starting point for your own, as well as to provide a few useful functions.  One is the Binaries-Only filter, which, as I mentioned, will remove any article less than 100 lines long from your Grouplists.  Another will highlight and automatically download any article that mentions PMINews, PMMail, SouthSide Software or Stardock in the subject.  Both of these are disabled by default, but by modifying them you could really boost your off-line reading, having PMINews automatically download articles of interest to you before going into off-line mode.

Off-line

PMINews is designed to work off-line as well as on-line for those who can spend only a limited time connected to the Internet.  A typical session might involve starting the program, going on-line to retrieve new headers, going off-line and then browsing through each newsgroup selecting articles for download, then jumping back on-line again briefly to download those articles and sign off.  This is done by clicking the connect button (represented by a picture of a light switch) every time you want PMINews to connect to the server and perform all the queued commands.  PMINews does not actually need to have a network connection present at all times, only when it must communicate with the server.

Decoding attachments

PMINews' system for decoding attachments leaves much to be desired.  It works, and claims to handle multipart postings, but I and other users have had trouble with this feature.  There's no default directory for downloads, the program doesn't automatically select multipart postings (and won't warn if they're incomplete), it spawns a separate decoder window for each batch job and it forces you to select and save each decoded file individually.

There is a work-around for the "saving problem", though.  Each Grouplist has its own BIN directory where decoded attachments are stored.  You can open this folder and move files around en masse as you like, but this isn't really an acceptable solution.

Little details

Still, it's worth mentioning a few of the little details that make PMINews a great convenience.  If you highlight a URL in an article and right-click the mouse, PMINews will give you the option of viewing it with a WWW browser.  What's more it will send the URL to a currently running Netscape session if you already have one open.

PMINews keeps good track of cross-posted articles as well.  Press Ctrl+L to mark all articles as read in comp.os.os2.advocacy and you'll suddenly notice the article count drop for all the successive OS/2 newsgroups too.  This is because PMINews has gone through and zapped articles that had been cross-posted.

Two more options I almost overlooked, but which could prove handy for some people, were the ability to reverse the way newsgroup names are displayed (announce.os2.os.comp instead of comp.os.os2.announce, for example) and the removal of the letters "RE:" in article subjects.  Both nice touches.

But I don't like spam!

Worried about spam?  On the first page of each Grouplist's settings notebook, there are spaces for users to enter their real e-mail address, but there is also a "No Spam Address" space where you can make up anything you like.  I usually enter "no-spam-please@os2ezine.com" which will foul up any Junk E-mail artist who decides to sift through the newsgroups I post to.  When you post to a newsgroup, PMINews will use the No-Spam address instead of your real one in the header.

PMINews' third example filter is also for intended for dealing with Spam.  The "No-Spam!" filter will remove any message that contain too many exclamation marks, dollar signs, pound signs or triple-X's in its subject.  If this is not enough, you can easily edit this filter to add more keywords to your liking.

Problems

It's sad to say, but PMINews feels like it was released without enough testing.  That's not to say there has not been a lot of testing -- the PMINews beta list has been extremely active for some time -- just not enough testing.  When I tested the program I had numerous headaches and problems trying to make it last into a second session without crashing moments after being launched.  Deleting Grouplists seemed to help at first, but I ended up re-creating them laboriously 3 or 4 times, in addition to a complete uninstall and reinstall of the product.  There also appears to be a problem on some users' machines where PMINews will crash with a SYS3175 error as it goes to retrieve new headers from the server.  (I was told that this was probably due to a corrupted database and that deleting the GL.DAT and GL.LVS files in each grouplist's folder would fix the problem.  It seemed to do the trick.)

Setting the codepage to ISO-8859-1 does not work which is inconvenient for those who read European newsgroups.  I found PMINews frequently got stuck on "100%" when refreshing headers and wouldn't progress to updating the next newsgroup.  Sometimes I was even given outlandish article counts for relatively quiet newsgroups.  There's no "STOP" button to force the newsreader to drop its connection in an emergency.  Likewise, there doesn't appear to be a way to limit the number of newsgroup headers downloaded at one time.

And there are many other places where the v1.0 copy of PMINews I tested just doesn't feel finished.  In the "General" tab of the PMINews settings the "Work in off-line mode" feature is not documented in the help file.  Selecting the "Keys Help" in the help menu doesn't work.  The help buttons of individual tabs of the settings notebooks are not directly linked to their respective help pages; you have to wander through from the main help page of that notebook instead.  And the phone number in the "How to get support" section of the on-line help is not valid (a recorded message will tell you it has been changed to (313) 762-0687).

The spell checker has a limited dictionary, not even recognizing the words PMINews or PMMail!  Plus, anything you add to the dictionary will not be recognized until the next message you compose.

Key bindings feel awkward too.  While EmTec newsreader will let you advance back and forth through articles using 'N' and 'P' for Next and Previous respectively, PMINews uses F7 and F6 instead.  Not great choices in my opinion.

I should stress that not everyone who uses PMINews has experienced all these major difficulties, but a considerable number have.  Checking the newsgroups themselves, especially comp.os.os2.mail-news, reveals a number of people who are having these same problems trying to get this program to work.  My own experience was not a favorable one; I love the product's features and interface, but all too often it felt like walking through a paradise that had been dotted with land mines.

So is it ready for prime time?

This is a hard question, but I think the answer is, "no".  I spent a long time checking my own configuration and corresponding with other users to make sure I wasn't stepping out over a cliff that had no bridge but, in short, I believe PMINews needs its stability problems addressed quickly by both Stardock and Southside Software before I can seriously recommend buying it.  (Both companies do have a reputation for delivering fixes on a timely basis though, and I've been informed by SouthSide that both a bug fix and a demo version of the product will be available in July.)

PMINews is still a wonderful newsreader that has had a lot of thought put into the design process, but my final recommendation is: it's worth it, but wait until the fixpack.

-----

* PlusPak: PMINews for OS/2
by (http://www.southsoft.com/) SouthSoft, Inc.
published by (http://www.stardock.com/) Stardock Systems Inc.
MSRP: US$34.95

-----

(http://www.spectra.net/~fox/) Chris Wenham is a freelance web designer, writer and Englishman who now lives in Endicott, NY.  In the past he has written comedy, sci-fi, Pascal, Rexx, HTML and Gibberish.  He has been using OS/2 exclusively for the past 2 years.

***********************************

The Graham Utilities v2	- by Jurgen Assfalg and Andrea Resmini

-----

editor's note: The following article originally appeared in Italian in the on-line OS/2 magazine, (http://www.mclink.it/mclink/teamos2it/justwarp/index.htm) Just WARP!.  It was translated to English by Andrea Resmini.

-----

Many people who started working with personal computers more than a couple of years ago know who Peter Norton is.  Most surely they know Mr. Norton because of his famous "Norton Utilities".

The suite of utilities we looked at this month draws at least inspiration from the works of Mr. Norton, only 'Peter' this time is an Australian guy who goes by the name of Chris Graham and who, when OS/2 1.2 was released, felt he couldn't work safely without the tools he had become used to when working with DOS.  Of course, he couldn't find anything of that sort which was OS/2 native, so he decided to do some programming himself.  The Graham Utilities were born.

Mr. Graham's noble effort produced a suite of system utilities which should not be overlooked or underestimated.  Analogies with Peter Norton's work go so far as to having not only a similar way of functioning, but also a resemblance in utility names: just substitute 'Norton' with 'Graham' and you have it.  If, in DOS, you had 'Norton Something', you most likely have 'Graham Something' in OS/2.

Packaging and Documentation

Graham Utilities come in three different flavours:

o  Floppy disks & hard copy manual
o  CD-ROM only
o  CD-ROM & hard copy manual

The latter version is the one we tested.

The box has a standard PC game box size, and contains one CD-ROM and a 400 page hard copy manual describing, with plenty of details, all the programs included in the Utilities.  The Appendix has two interesting chapters devoted to an introduction to the HPFS file system and OS/2 extended attributes, arcane matters on which light is cast for both newcomers and old OS/2 hackers.

Those who go for the CD-ROM only version have at least three possibilities to choose from, since all the docs are included in PDF, PostScript and HTML format.  Even if one doesn't have a PC with the Adobe Acrobat Reader or GhostView installed to take a glimpse at the first two, nearly everyone has a WWW browser on his or her PC.  If you are reading this, you can read the Graham Utilities HTML documentation.

A floppy disk is also included in the package which should be used during installation to back up important information about the user's hard disk(s).  This is a nice plus which avoids floppy safari hunts on the user's side; just unpack and start using the Utilities.

Installation

As soon as the install program is started (the file is called INSTALL.CMD and can be found in the root directory) even the inattentive among us will notice something quite peculiar: six different versions of the Graham Utilities have found their way onto the disc.  Each of them has been optimized for a specific CPU class, from 286 to Pentium, and one is ready to run on PowerPCs.

J:\
J:\286
J:\286NT
J:\386
J:\486
J:\586
J:\603

Once a CPU type has been selected and source and target directory are set, the install routine installs the various utilities and optionally creates a Desktop folder containing all of the program objects.

Finally, the install routine backs up data related to the user's system hard disk(s) partitioning by means of the Recovery Disk.  Although this is precisely what that disk is included for, it is strongly recommended to make a spare copy, since the floppy also contains crash-recovery programs to use when in dire need.

There seems to be a slip in the installation procedure which one needs to be aware of: if one specifies a non-floppy source (for example a CD-ROM drive) these sensitive data do not get copied (trying to write on the CD, maybe?).  However, it is possible to back them up manually using SAVEPART (with RESTPART to be used if the need arises to restore information about damaged partitions).

The Collection

There are more than sixty programs in the Graham Utilities v2.0; we will take a peek here and there, since a detailed description of all of them would be impossible or tedious.  Lining them up has led to a few categories:

BE - batch enhancer

This program allows the user to enrich his or her batch files with interesting and configurable features.  Most useful are those functions of the Batch Enhancer which are related to semaphores; it is possible to enjoy the pleasures of multitasking even in this simplest form of programming.  Using semaphore calls like SEMCLOSE, SEMCLEAR, SEMSET, SEMWAIT, SEMKILL, and SEMLIST), more than one batch procedure may access shared resources at a given time in an orderly fashion.

EA - extended attributes

A second group represents those programs (EABackup, EABind, EADump, EARestor) which are able to manage one of the peculiar characteristics of the OS/2 file system, extended attributes: with these the user can visualize in detail and modify, if necessary, the extended attributes of any file.  The two programs which are responsible for backing up and restoring EAs allow the use of wildcards (*.  ?), as opposed to OS/2's own EAUtil.

For those still inexperienced in the ways of EAs, the manual sports a brief but good appendix to introduce you to the subject.

FAT or HPFS?

A whole slew of utilities are provided for maintaining the user's storage devices, both HPFS and FAT formatted.  These are FAT-Bad, FAT-Dfrg, FAT-Ext, FAT-Info, FAT-Null, FAT-UD, FAT-View for FAT, and HPFS-Bad, HPFS-Ext, HPFS-UD, HPFSDfrg, HPFSInfo, HPFSNull, HPFSStat, HPFSView for HPFS disks (quite obviously).

Using these utilities, most hard disk related operations can be carried out successfully: data reading, recovering of erased files, disk defragmenting, data wiping.  A full set of switches is provided to guarantee a high degree of customization.

For example, HPFS-ext -- just like its brother, FAT-ext -- reports the fragmentation status of files:

[F:\Products\Team\JustWarp!\gu20artic]hpfs-ext
[HPFS-Ext, V2.00 - 31/08/96 - (C) Chris Graham - WarpSpeed Computers]

Press ESC to abort at next file.

Searching Drive F:
F:\Products\Team\JustWarp!\gu20artic\folder4.gif Comprises 2 extents.
F:\Products\Team\JustWarp!\gu20artic\gi.gif Comprises 1 extent.
F:\Products\Team\JustWarp!\gu20artic\gu-box.gif Comprises 1 extent.
F:\Products\Team\JustWarp!\gu20artic\GU20artic.htm Comprises 4 extents.

[F:\Products\Team\JustWarp!\gu20artic]

HPFSDfrg (or FAT-Dfrg) reduces fragmentation of files:

[F:\Products\Team\JustWarp!\gu20artic]hpfsdfrg gu20artic.htm
[HPFSDfrg, V2.00 - 31/08/96 - (C) Chris Graham - WarpSpeed Computers]

Attempting to optimize files with greater than 2 extents.

Press ESC to abort at next file.

Searching Drive F:
F:\Products\Team\JustWarp!\gu20artic\GU20artic.htm Comprises 4 extents.  Optimize
d to 2 extents.

[F:\Products\Team\JustWarp!\gu20artic]

HPFSView or FATView analyze a whole disk.

Particular care has been placed on preventing careless or unskilled users from damaging their systems.  For example, FAT-Null (which fills all free clusters with zeros) requires a drive letter explicitly stated, while other tools default to the current disk.  The documentation also clearly explains the use of all the Utilities (saying if each locks the drive, for example).  This comforted and reassured us.

It's Not Over Yet...

Other oldies but goodies can also be found in this new version of the Graham Utilities: FF, SI, GCD (a close relative of NCD) and more.

Encoders/decoders (UUDecode, UUEncode, XXDecode, XXEncode, MIDecode, MIEncode) are included, as well as converters to and from UNIX formats (FromUnix, ToUnix) which take care of the different LineFeed/CarriageReturn methods of terminating a file.

Possibly you can find free programs to handle these conversions, but it's a convenience for the user not to have to roam the Internet or some BBS to find them.  With the Graham Utilities, he or she will also get a consistent set of switches and parameters throughout all the programs, which is not easy to obtain if you collect tools from different sources.

Also worth mention is a simple GREP utility that the author is going to develop further in future releases.

Using Graham Utilities

Today, in times of sophisticated GUI (Graphical User Interface), a text/command line interface could easily be discarded as obsolete.  But this solution has advantages in terms of runtime speed, possibility of use on older systems, remote use (via telnet, RCSH) and WPS independency.  Think about recovering from a WPS-trashing crash, for example.

Those who prefer an overall interface or who have a dislike for command line switches can make a move to the Graham Integrator (GI), a simple shell which acts as a program loader for the Utilities and which shows possible parameters for each program.  Every Utility has a brief command line help, and interactive programs access their help system via hot-keys (usually F1).

What if the user is no computer genius?

Well, 'read your manual well' is an old saying but a wise one; if there is a system administrator, probably he or she can lend a serviceable hand.  If the Utilities are to be used on a networked computer, many of them accept the workstation name as a parameter and can be run from the server.

Wish List

Although Chris Graham was not shooting at WPS integration with this version of the Utilities, a little effort in this direction would have been appreciated.  Some of the Utilities, those which encode/decode for example, would benefit from being able to open data files by drag and drop to their object, and this would be a mere matter of parameters in the programs' settings notebooks.

Support

Users are supported via WWW, Telnet, Gopher, FTP and e-mail (on fidonet, the Internet and CompuServe).  Future updates may be obtained using the Retrieve Software Updates facility.

A final Word

The Graham Utilities v2.0 are an interesting product, regardless of the text interface; the wide range of functions they are able to perform almost covers the entirety of operations required for managing an OS/2 system.

Great emphasis has been placed on the flexibility and possibility for customization of the programs; many of them can be piped or redirected to other Utilities to carry out complex tasks.  This may be an outdated way of working, but it is a powerful and sure-footed one.  (Program output can be redirected for example to CLIPBRD, a tool which copies it into the system clipboard to be viewable from all PM applications.)

The Graham Utilities are a valid solution for both the professional power user and the hobbyist who wants to keep his or her system in good shape.

-----

* Graham Utilities v2.0
by (http://www.netins.net/showcase/spectre/warpsped.htm) WarpSpeed Computers
MSRP: US$69.00 (CD-ROM & Manual)

-----

(vigo@freenet.hut.fi) Jurgen Assfalg is an electronics engineering student, now working on 3D graphics and VR systems to implement innovative user interfaces.  He chose OS/2 because its WPS is still one of the most advanced GUIs.

(resmini@netsis.it) Andrea Resmini is an architect and a staff member at the Faculty of Architecture of Milan, Italy.  He studies GUIs and the human/computer interface and occasionally shows his broken English in lands both near and far.

***********************************

DeskMan/2 v2.0	- by Ryan Dill

-----

As we all know, one of OS/2's most powerful features is its object-oriented interface, the Workplace Shell (WPS).  Its architecture makes it extremely easy for Joe Q. Public to configure the look and feel of his OS/2 Warp system exactly as he likes it, while his friends using certain -- ahem -- other operating systems are out of luck.  It only makes sense, then, that two of the most important issues on many OS/2 users' minds are:

1. Tweaking the WPS on their system to their satisfaction, and
2. Keeping their tweaks intact.

This is where DeskMan/2 comes in -- it provides extensive configurability and archiving features in one package, allowing you to configure scads of things, and make sure you'll always have those configurations saved for easy recall.  In addition, DM/2 contains security features which make it an excellent choice for any security-conscious user, whether network administrator, office worker, or home user with a nosy kid sister.

Installation

DeskMan/2 arrived as a spiffy-looking box containing two installation floppies and a hard copy manual.  Running the install program from the first disk started a text-based unpack of the files from the floppy to the hard disk, followed by the automatic start of DM/2's graphical installation program.  Users can either choose an "express install" (DM/2 installs most components) or a "custom install" (where you can pick and choose components).  One thing about the custom install that irritated me is that if you're installing DM/2 to a directory other than the default, you have to manually edit all nine path statements to reflect the desired path.  I've seen some OS/2 applications where all path statements are linked so if you edit one, all the rest are updated too -- that would be a nice feature here.

Still, installation progressed with no real problems, and pretty soon I was looking at DeskMan/2's Desktop folder.  Being a cool-Desktop junkie, I immediately proceeded to check out DM/2's WPS Extensions and PM extensions, to see how I could jazz up my system.
 
Desktop Enhancement

DM/2's PM Extensions object gives you some of the capabilities of other Desktop enhancer programs, including a window close button (not needed in Warp 4, but it still works), a "Roving Mouse" feature (a la X-Mouse), virtual Desktop-like "workspaces", and the ability to have nested menu items automatically spring out without clicking.  In addition, it gives every window a menu which allows for "window tweaking" (center window, move window to 'bottom' of window order, make window sticky, etc.) or changing from one workspace to another.  You can even add features to OS/2's own Window List, such as showing the current time on its title bar, or adding DM/2 shortcuts to it.

DM/2's WPS Extensions include even more features -- users can: set what happens to a parent folder when they open or close one of its children (close, minimize, etc.); provide multiple Desktops on the same machine (a Desktop for you and a completely different one for the kids, maybe?); eliminate shutdown confirmation; and more.  You can even restart the WPS with a couple of mouse clicks, leaving all running programs intact, which is great for those lockups when everything else is still working.  The WPS Extensions also allow you to remove menu items (such as delete, rename, move, etc.) from pretty much any object in the WPS, including folders, drives, printers, and network connections.  When this 'omission' feature is combined with DM/2's built-in Access Control Objects, the package gains a decent level of security.

Security

Since the 'omission' feature isn't that much of a challenge to surmount if you've used OS/2 before, Access Control Objects go a leap or two further, allowing one to password-protect any object for a particular action.  In other words, you may be allowed to open (run) object Z, but trying to do anything else (like deleting or moving it) would not be allowed without the correct password.  Object Z may have multiple actions protected with a different password for each one.  Since the Shredder is just another object, it can be controlled in this way too, requiring a password before it shreds anything.  To prevent access from underneath the WPS, command prompts can be locked in a similar manner, although there's always the option of a hard reboot and Alt-F1 to circumvent this tactic.  DM/2's Audit feature is used to keep track of exactly what objects are used, changed, deleted, and so on.

Archiving

DeskMan/2's Object Manager makes it easy to save archives of your system.  For individual objects, one can simply create a new archive by dragging the archive template to the desired location, then dragging the objects to be saved into the new archive.  Now saved in the archive, these objects can be used as backups if the original objects are lost, corrupted, or even moved out of whack by an accidental 'Arrange' or 'Sort' of the Desktop.

Also, archives can be easily transferred to another computer.  Since in this case the software associated with the archived objects might now be stored on a different drive letter, you would normally have to manually change drive references, one by one.  However, DeskMan/2 provides an easy "drive mapping" feature which allows you to change the drive letters for more than one object at a time; simply select the objects whose letters you want to change and choose the new drive letter you want them to have, and you're done.

Using its Configuration Image Facility (either the command-line or the PM version), DeskMan/2 can go a step further and save your entire Workplace Shell environment -- including your OS/2 Desktop, CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT, INI files, STARTUP.CMD, and even your Win-OS/2 Desktop -- in an archive it calls a repository set.  Since the Image Facility allows for multiple sets, it's easy to have system archives for any number of system setups.  (The manual suggests that this feature is perfect for software demo machines, which may use a different setup for a number of demo shows.)

Other Features

On top of all that's been mentioned, DeskMan/2 has even more stuff packed into it.  It includes VueMan/2 (a complete management utility for its workspaces), an Object Explorer which can be used to view and edit any object's settings; a Black Hole which can delete things OS/2's Shredder can't (heck, it eats Shredders for breakfast...); and instructions for best network installation.  The amount of features crammed into this package is impressive, to say the least.

Glitches

Nothing's perfect, though.  As mentioned, part of the custom install routine was slightly irritating, and could be improved upon; in terms of bugs, the 'Roving Mouse' feature seems to have one or two, as even when it's told not to bring a window to the top of the window order, it sometimes does.  Netscape is one program affected by this bug, as are the windows of DeskMan/2 itself.

Conclusion

DeskMan/2 is a jack-of-all-trades package which does a good job at all the features it promises to deliver.  The manual is extensive, there are very few bugs that I found, and it allows you to configure loads of stuff on your Desktop.  If you like the sound of it, and you have Warp 4, you can take a closer look at the demo copy (v1.51) on your Application Sampler CD.  Anyone who needs archiving (which is a good idea for most of us) and definitely anyone who's looking for a bit of affordable security, DeskMan/2 is a great solution.

-----

* DeskMan/2
by (devtech@ibm.net) DevTech
MSRP: US$99.00

-----

(dill@os2ezine.com) Ryan Dill is a student in Computer Science at Acadia University in Wolfville, NS and one of e-Zine! 's assistant editors.  He is reported to be relieved that, with the advent of Warp 4, talking to your computer is no longer considered a sign of mental instability.

***********************************

Commander for OS/2 v2.24-4	- by Pete Grubbs

-----

Overview

It's a little embarrassing to admit, but it's true: I liked the old Windows File Manager.  Yeah, it's buggy and strange in places and its search feature might leave a lot to be desired, but I understood it.  I could get a lot of work done with it in very short order.  When I made the jump to OS/2 2.1, I didn't miss Windows' GPFs and kludgy interface but I did miss File Manager.  While I could manage files from an OS/2 prompt or open the appropriate folder to drag and drop objects, I was never completely comfortable with the first routine and the second seemed to take forever.

So, I searched for a replacement for File Manager.  I ran SofTouch Systems' FileStar/2 (v1.0) for a couple of years and found a lot to like, but even more to dislike especially the way it would hang my system whenever I worked extensively with .ZIP files.  (When I e-mailed STS for advice or a fix for this, I was told that it wasn't a problem in the latest version and my only recourse was to buy the upgrade.)

Then I tried ZTree Bold and loved the way it zoomed through my drives but could never get comfortable with its display.  I downloaded Mark Kimes' FM/2 and used it for a few weeks but got tired of devoting disk space to an app that took close to a minute to load and had a gazillion neat functions that I never used.

Finally, I stumbled upon Commander for OS/2, a Norton Commander clone for OS/2 written by (100645.1340@CompuServe.COM) Emil Fickel of EF Software.  Within an hour, I was hooked.  Here was an app that worked the way I wanted to work, had enough bells and whistles to satisfy the wonk in me but didn't take up a huge chunk of disk space and loaded in less than six seconds.

Test System

The machine used to rate this product is powered by a Cyrix 100 chip running with 32 megs of RAM.  The graphics card is a D24 BitBlaster with 1 meg of RAM hooked into an AcerView 56 15" monitor.  The single hard drive is a Fujitsu 1090M and the operating system is OS/2 Warp 4.0 (sans FixPaks).

Installation

After downloading the archive file from Fickel's (http://members.aol.com/efsoftware/idx_eng.htm) English language home page (there's a separate page for German speakers), I created a directory, unzipped the file into it and ran the installation program.  This brought up a dialog window asking for a drive and directory (the default is C:\COMM) and created a program object on my Desktop.  Double clicking on this object launched Commander and brought up a small window which allowed me to choose from five different language modules (Dansk, Deutch, English, Francais and Romaneste) Commander can use to display menu/task bar information.  The full application opened after I had made my selection and this window did not reappear.

Commander's Interface

Commander's ease of use is a direct result of its clean, simple interface.  Commander presents directory/file information in two windows or panels.  Directly above these windows are their title bars, which can be displayed in two different modes (3D and Normal) or not at all.  Above the title bars is a "Diskbar" which puts all drives (including floppies and CD-ROMs) on clickable buttons.  Navigating between disks is as simple as clicking on the appropriate drive button.

On top of the Diskbar is a customizable Toolbar which has 48 different options to choose from.  Commander comes configured with about two dozen different buttons on the Toolbar and adding or removing buttons is a breeze.

Above the Toolbar is a standard menu bar which also provides access to options for the left and right panels.  Beneath the panels is a command line which displays the current active directory and a status bar that indicates the current file and its attendant information, the amount of free space on the drive, the display format for the panels, and the date and time.  A right mouse click in the various sections of this bar brings up different menus which provide more detailed information on the file, disk, etc.  The Status Bar can also be customized in a variety of ways, including font selection.

The Basics

When it comes to file/disk management, all the bells and whistles in the world don't mean a thing to me if I can't copy, move and delete files quickly and easily.  Commander assigns these commands to the function keys so any operation is simply a matter of selecting the target file/directory with the right mouse button and pressing a key.  Copy and Move operations default to whatever directory is displayed in the other panel, i.e., if you select files in the left panel to copy (or move) and the right panel is showing your Temporary directory on C:, Commander's copy dialog window will automatically copy the files there unless you specify another drive/directory.  None of this is terribly exciting or new, but it all works quite easily, even if some of the keystroke choices seem a bit odd (delete is mapped to the F8 key instead of the Delete key).

Clicking within a panel or on its title bar makes that panel active; double-clicking on a subdirectory opens it and displays the contents in an easily customizable format.  One very convenient addition to the panels are two small buttons located near their upper right corners.  A single click on the button marked with an ellipsis takes you up one directory level; a click on the other button (marked with a backslash) takes you to the drive's root directory.  I've found this feature to be very convenient and use it almost every time I load Commander.

A right mouse click within either panel's title bar brings up a menu that contains eight commonly used file commands along with three settings for the panel's size relative to its neighbor.  The right mouse button can be configured to select or to drag and drop, but not both.  (This is one feature that takes a bit of getting used to and since it changes the behavior of some of the commands within Commander, I'm not convinced that it isn't a weakness which should be addressed in future versions.)

Other Goodies

With all of the basics well covered, this file manager includes some more exotic options that are very useful.  Commander will compare the contents of any two directories displayed in its panels, highlighting those files which are not common to each.  You can also synchronize the contents of two different directories (a real asset to those of us who have to share files on two different machines).

Commander includes its own text editor and viewer and will allow the user to specify external editors if these aren't acceptable.  The user can associate file extensions to applications so that, for example, a double click on any .TXT file loads it into the Enhanced Editor, but this feature doesn't transfer to the Desktop.

There's also support for compressed files in eight different flavors, including PKZip, but not, alas, InfoZip.  You can kill processes from Commander and perform a Shutdown.  There's even an applet that provides a convenient interface for setting the system's clock.  The panel displays are fairly flexible with two pre-configured layouts (Brief and Full) and a third (Custom) which is open to suggestions.  Colors are also variable but font selections are restricted to monospaced fonts in Brief and Full layouts; however, the Custom layout has no font restrictions.  Still not enough for the power-wonk in you?  Well, there are more bells and whistles in Commander, but I'll let you explore them for yourself.

Love It or Leave It

Commander isn't a perfect application.  I miss being able to select all the files in a given directory with a simple Control-/ keystroke and I confess that I'm bemused by the author's decision to use the F8 key to delete.  I'd also like to see Commander drop the dialog windows for Copy/Move commands and give me the option to make one or the other the default setting for a given keystroke or mouse click.

Drag and Drop from Commander to the Desktop isn't supported and the English text files leave a LOT to be desired (however, I understand that the author is in the process of updating them).

Conclusions

But these are small gripes when I consider the ease and speed with which this program handles my day-to-day chores.  It's small, loads quickly, doesn't hang my system, shows me all the information I need at a glance, has a slick, polished feel and, for US$39, it pretty much blows any of the other managers I've used clean out of the water, even good ol' FileMangler.  It's definitely worth taking out for a test-drive.

-----

* Commander for OS/2 v2.24-4
by (http://ourworld.compuserve.com/Homepages/EFSoftware/) EF Software
download from the (http://www.os2ss.com/archives/hobbes/os2/util/shell/efcomm.zip) OS/2 Supersite (ZIP, 413k)
Registration: US$39.00 

-----

(peg5@psu.edu) Pete Grubbs is a self-described OS/2 wonk and doctoral candidate in English literature at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, a part-time faculty member at Penn State and is currently developing a copy editing/creation service, The Document Doctor, which tailors documents for small businesses.

***********************************

moneyplex v1.0	- by Marco Steinbach

-----

After the ultimate barrier between me and my money, the plain "We're closed!" sign, evolved into a blinking "Out of order..." display due to the dramatic achievements in banking technology today, I decided to make use of all the machinery I have at home to get my financial jobs done.  Homebanking is the magic word.

Instead of throwing my money out the Window(s), I wanted a native OS/2 application to replace the somewhat primitive BTX-interface (which is provided by German Telecom) for homebanking.  Also, I prefer to work off-line and only connect for actual data transfers.  Being in Germany, where homebanking is fairly advanced, I thought I should be able to find such a solution.  So I went looking for a homebanking application to meet my needs.

And here is what I have found: moneyplex from (http://home.t-online.de/home/moneyplex) Fleming & Partner.

Installation

Installation is... well... straightforward.  Insert the CD.  Double-click SETUP.EXE.  You're done.

F&P recommend a display-resolution of at least 800x600 and a color depth of 16 bits ("Deep Color", 65536 colors).  This seems unusual for an application whose main purpose is financial tasks, but after starting the multithreaded PM-based installation-program you will immediately understand why they recommend these capabilities.  (This sample GIF was sized 800x600 in real life.)  Yeah, right, OS/2 apps are designed without style...

Note: All screen shots in this review have been reduced to at least 256 colors.  I have tried moneyplex in 1024x768x65535, 1024x768x256, 800x600x256 and 640x480x256.  It had no problems with any resolution, but 640x480 was a pain...

After entering your licence-code, the program asks for the directory to install, installs about 9 Megs of data (which includes a BTX-decoder based on the very popular Opalis-package), puts a moneyplex-folder on the Desktop, and you can start working immediately, for example, by importing your account data from apps which are able to export QIF or DBF files.

The first time...

The first time I started moneyplex, a very helpful assistant popped up.  With its help, configuration was done in a rush.  I was finished in about 10 minutes, including the creation of cash and bank accounts and configuration of my T-Online access data.  Modem and ISDN connections are supported.

In order to be able to use your TANs ("Transaktions Nummer", or Transaction Number), you have to contact your bank via BTX, as usual.  This is annoying: the Opalis decoder built into moneyplex is unable to do this.  You have to install the one which is delivered with OS/2.

After this, I called up T-Online to reach my bank.  During the first call, moneyplex sent a registration-message to Fleming & Partner, based on what I had entered in the registration-dialog.  I would like to have had an additional warning before the data is sent, just for psychological reasons.

Communication with the bank is done via the so-called ZKA-standard, so there is no need to configure this separately.  All you see is a small window, where the built-in Opalis-decoder is shown doing its work.  A few German banks simply ignore this very popular standard, so it is best to ask your bank first (e.g. the German SPARA bank does not support ZKA, but the latest update of moneyplex includes support for this bank, also).

A note to those people who, like me, do not like to spend additional money for a T-Online account: moneyplex can make use of the so called Container-Accounts (the German term is exactly the same), which eliminate the need to be a registered T-Online user, if your bank supports this mechanism.  Let your bank pay your account.  Nice idea!

You can even transfer your data via diskettes, as moneyplex supports the DTA standard, which is very popular in Germany.  And yes, hardliners will be happy too: you can print out the documents on standard forms...

The looks

All my data are now presented in a nice graphical environment with moneyplex.  F&P did a good job representing all the documents on-screen.  They look exactly like the "real" ones -- and they consume a lot of space on my screen.  This is annoying sometimes, since moneyplex is a so-called MDI (Multi Document Interface) application.  This means that all windows which are created by moneyplex can not be moved outside of the main application window.  It seems like the designers did not like this behaviour either since they implemented a rollup button.  Applause!

Readability is improved through the use of nonstandard dialog elements, like new containers, where a single click on a column's title changes the order of the displayed items.

Another interesting feature are the program's push-buttons, which remind me of those good old BWCC.DLL-times.  But there are others too, each with its own icon.

moneyplex has a toolbar to access the most frequently-used items.  I would not comment on this toolbar, except for the fact that you can not move it.  Nor can you use smaller icons.  And there is no way to switch it off completely.  Okay, the icons are nice, and I did not need the manual to figure out what they stood for, but... it is TOO LARGE.  Believe me, it is.  870x65 pixels (at 1024x768).

It is automatically exchanged for a smaller one (as is everything else!) when using a smaller display resolution, but...

Daily work

My usual transactions mainly consist of simple tasks.  Remitting of money ("berweisungen"), paying standing orders ("Dauerauftrge") and getting excerpts ("Auszge").

All these tasks are quite easy, since moneyplex helps me fill out the necessary forms, and (as stated above) they look exactly like those I have to fill in at my bank.  There are also some small, but very helpful enhancements, which my new "eForms" have:

o  Automatic recipient-data completion from an address book
o  Forced use of the categories (but there is a "none"-category preconfigured also)
o  Calculation of some numbers based on which recipient I select, like maturity and discount
o  I do not need to look for a pen to fill them in...

As mentioned above, moneyplex organizes income and expenses into categories.  There are many preconfigured, which I changed to meet my needs.

An address book for recipients is also included, which is used to complete recipient information when filling in a form and some other things which ease the pain of losing money.  Of course, every transaction is logged, and can easily be reviewed and printed.

One of the main advantages for me is that I can administer all my transactions off-line and send them bundled (even those for different accounts) during a single connection.  In addition I can receive my excerpts within the same connect, and organize all incoming bookings later.

Another useful mechanism is the suspension of standing orders with a few mouse clicks, and though I do not use it frequently it is good to have it.  Also, it is easy to use, so I do not have to consult the documentation for each and every occasional use.

A single mouse click fills the screen with an overall view of my financial status, including bar and pie graphs on my expenses/income per category.  In addition to this overview, I am able to create evaluations based on selected categories and accounts, again with detailed graphs on what happened in a given period of time.

At first I was somewhat sceptical about all this colored stuff, but now it is of great use to me for finding an answer to one of the main questions in human life: where did all my money go?

Security

You can password protect moneyplex to prevent others from paying their bills with your money.

In addition to your personal access data, the PINs (Personal Identification Number, "Persnliche Identifikations Nummer) and TANs (Transaction Number, "Transaktions Nummer") are stored encrypted.

When there is light . . .

...there is surely some shadow.

I was really disappointed to discover that the right mouse button is not used at all in this application.  Although I can easily achieve everything I want with push-buttons (no need to pull down menus) and other dialog elements, I am used to right-clicking on things to get their properties.  It seems as if a lot of people have requested this RMB functionality, so  F&P added this support in their latest update, which can be downloaded directly from (http://home.t-online.de/home/moneyplex) their site.

Many people may also consider the lack of context-sensitive help to be a major flaw.  I did not miss it since moneyplex displays hints on what to choose to accomplish a given task.

The program has no printed manual, but installs some INFs, which explain the application and some other things in detail.

The upcoming German TCP/IP-based HBCI (Homebanking Computer Interface) is not yet implemented, since German banks are still negotiating on the exact implementation.  Telecom is said to be including the HBCI in the next release of their decoder, but I assume this will still use the BTX-interface in the background, hidden from the user.  The technical support people told me that moneyplex will be able to use the new standard as soon as there are final specifications and a reference model for implementation.

Finally, moneyplex does not support the use of debits ("Lastschriften"), and is not able to administer different client accounts ("Mandanten"), which would be of great use to small companies.  Again, technical support said that both problems will be addressed in the next major release.

A Competitor

German company StarFinanz ((http://www.stardiv.de/) StarDivision and Sparkasse are involved) is supposed to release a product called StarMoney for homebanking.  They made their first public appearance at Cebit Home in Germany, then they were at Cebit this year previewing their product.  The preview is a 16-bit MS Windows application (it tries to mimic the MS Windows 95 user interface), which comes with the complete Telekom BTX-Dekoder for MS Windows.

The preview is very limited as was my time to take a look at.  Nearly all of its features only work with special branches of the German Sparkasse.  And my request for an overview of my financial standings was answered with a "Not implemented yet"-message...

As you can imagine I was not that happy with this "preview".  The README states that all features will be implemented for all banks "shortly".  I suppose StarMoney either tries to make use of the not yet existing HBCI 2.0 or the guys from StarFinanz have a lot of work left to do in order to support "all" banks.

So what ?

I can do all I want and need in terms of homebanking with moneyplex, and even some more things as well.  Support was responsive (e-mail, Fax and telephone) and reacted constructively and helpfully (mostly).  As they are relatively new to the market though, F&P do have some difficulties keeping up with all the requests which come in.

At a suggested price of DM 149,- ((http://www.dco.net/) Deckarm gave it away for DM 95) moneyplex was an excellent choice for me, and I recommend users to have a look at the (http://home.t-online.de/home/moneyplex/) demo-version.

-----

Computer used in this review:

AMD DX4/120 w/32mb RAM
OS/2 Warp 4.0
ATI Mach32 Graphics Ultra Pro (VLB) at 1024x768, 65k

-----

* moneyplex v1.0
by (http://home.t-online.de/home/moneyplex) Fleming & Partner
download a demo from (http://home.t-online.de/home/moneyplex/download.htm) Fleming & Partner's web site
MSRP: DM149.00

-----

(coco@unix-ag.org) Marco Steinbach is a student of computer science in Siegen (NRW, Germany), and has been using OS/2 since release 2.1.  He is a member of Team OS/2 and the (http://www.unix-ag.uni-siegen.de/os2ugsi/) OS/2 Usergroup Siegerland.  Currently he is searching for a permanent OS/2 related job.

***********************************

Hewlett Packard's Vectra XU 6/200	- by Chris Williams

-----

When my office needed a new solution for recording our own CD-ROMs, I began to ask around about what class of system would be best cut out for the job in the real-world.  Needless to say, while an average system by today's standards is capable of recording CDs, everyone who seemed to know something about CD recording said the same thing: Get the fastest, hottest machine you can lay your hands on!  With that in mind, I finally settled on Hewlett Packard's Vectra XU 6/200 series system -- loaded up with as many trimmings as I could reasonably justify.  The Vectra XU is one of the high-end offerings from HP designed to do one thing well: run blazingly fast.

The Hardware

The standard features of the Vectra XU are:

o  Intel Pentium Pro 200 MHz processor, with support for dual processing
o  High-Performance, 128-bit memory architecture with ECC DIMM support
o  Integrated Ultra SCSI and PCI Bus Master Enhanced-IDE controllers
o  16x Max-speed EIDE CD-ROM drive
o  Integrated, high-quality Sound Blaster Pro-compatible 16-bit audio
o  32-bit PCI Professional video solution with 64-bit graphics engine
o  High-speed 10/100VG or 10/100Base-T PCI LAN interface

My particular model, the Vectra XU 6/200 mini-tower came with:

o  512KB Level 2 cache (internal to the processor)
o  64MB 60ns ECC DIMM memory
o  2.1GB Ultra SCSI disk drive
o  Matrox Millennium PCI 64-bit graphics accelerator with 2MB RAM

As extras, I upgraded the Matrox card to 4MB RAM and added a second 2.1GB drive.  The monitor is an Eizo FlexScan F77 21" display with speakers.  For my CD-ROM recording needs, I opted for a Yamaha CDR400 caddy style recorder.  This particular recorder can function as both a reader and a recorder, which has proved to be a real advantage.  (More on recording your own CD-ROMs under OS/2 will come in a later review.)

Christmas in Spring -- Unpacking the System

The Vectra arrived in due time and I set about the job of setting up the hardware and all the other components.  I was impressed with the overall fit and finish of the system.  It's well laid out on the inside and, most important, there are plenty of additional slots and bays for adding things.  No tools are required to remove the system cover; just lift two latches and slide it forward.  But not needing tools for basic maintenance, alas, is still a lost art to most brands of today, and here the HP follows the crowd.  Once the cover is open, be prepared with the usual array of screwdrivers, pliers, and a good Swiss Army Knife.  You'll need them.  Other than that, adding the second SCSI drive, CD recorder, and upgrading the card was straightforward with no surprises.

On the downside, the second hard drive failed soon after being installed.  I'm still waiting for a replacement drive.

Being that I'm based in Switzerland, this system came loaded with German BIOS, drivers, and (worst of all, OS/2 fans) the German version of Windows NT.  The system comes with it preloaded and you don't have the option to change it.  While my German skills are improving all the time, I get enough practice without having to decipher every computer message for both the language and what it means.  A quick visit to the HP Web site for an updated BIOS fixed the language problem.  Warp 4's FDISK program and Boot Manager fixed the NT problem.  My Vectra is now a multi-boot system with NT 4 modified to access my shared HPFS D: drive.  To HP's credit, a CD-ROM is included with the system that provides drivers for every major OS.  The OS/2 drivers were no more difficult to find than any others and all were quite up to date.

Software Installation

Warp 4 installs on this system flawlessly the first time!  Period.  The installation program correctly recognized every system component except the Matrox video card, which defaulted to standard VGA, and the PCI LAN card.  As expected, the OS/2 drivers for the LAN card installed from diskette when prompted.  The latest drivers from Matrox for OS/2 also installed the first time and worked impressively well -- as long as you read and understand the documentation that comes with them.  Use care when installing the Matrox drivers!  Follow the instructions carefully and completely.  Otherwise, you may find yourself booting with Alt-F1 resetting to VGA, and starting over.

The HP J2585B PCI Ethernet card is one of a newer series from HP.  It's a dual mode 10/100BaseT(X) adapter that comes with only a single RJ45 port -- the standard for 10BaseT.  Just plug in your LAN cable and the card automatically senses the speed of the network and sets itself up accordingly.  This kind of flexibility makes people upgrading to 100BaseTX from 10BaseT just sit back and smile.  It's a wonderful system when combined with today's 10/100BaseTX auto-sensing hubs.  Other nice touches on the Vectra XU include a 3-button mouse, a well planned and nice feeling keyboard (even if it is Swiss-German), and a wheel shaped volume control for the system's built-in speakers.

Get Ready to Scream

The software that loads on this system at boot-up is important to note.  Keep in mind the number and kinds of programs that I have set to load as the system comes up.  My list of programs that launch at start-up include these (and a few more):

o  NetWare Client (and all those drivers!)
o  File and Print Client (running NetBIOS over TCP/IP)
o  TCP/IP Services
o  TCP/IP for OS/2 X-Windows Server (the 16-bit one)
o  Object Desktop Professional 1.5
o  Animated Mouse Pointer for OS/2 (AMPTR)
o  Unite CD Maker CD recorder drivers
o  TCP/IP Inet, Telnet, and FTP daemons

In my opinion, one of the best ways to impress someone with the performance of your system is to talk about how long it takes for your system to actually boot.  Okay, so it's not a true measure of performance but we're talking more about bragging rights here.

The Vectra XU doesn't disappoint at all in this respect, and Warp 4 takes full advantage of the 32-bit optimization of the Pentium Pro processor.  The Power On System Test requires approximately 45 seconds from the time you turn on the power switch to the time the Boot Manager Menu screen shows up.  Press "Enter" to start Warp 4, and the HP loads everything, including all those drivers, network support, TCP/IP processes, the X-Server, the File & Print Client Requester, and more -- all in approximately 1 minute and 50 seconds.

The Pentium Pro

Warp 4 on the 200MHz Pentium Pro is Warp the way it should be.  It's just downright, blazingly fast.  Netscape loads faster than you can read the opening logos.  The 16-bit Win-OS/2 Window loads in a separate session in Enhanced Mode in 2 or 3 seconds!  You can also take advantage of a few OpenGL drivers (like the WarpSpace betas) that are optimized for the Pentium Pro.  In short, Intel really did OS/2 a favor by optimizing the Pentium Pro for true 32-bit operating systems.  Windows 95 simply can't take full advantage of this processor!  If (as I would expect) Intel drops pricing on Pentium Pros after the Pentium II gathers steam, OS/2 bargain hunters should keep a keen eye out.

Also of note is that the Vectra XU comes with a second processor slot.  That's got me waiting with bated breath for that widely talked about Warp 4.x/5.x SMP kernel.  Gee, if one Pentium Pro 200 can do this, two of them should...

Performance Results

I used Sysbench 0.9.1d to test the performance of the Vectra XU.  If my descriptions of the Vectra XU's speed don't impress you, Sysbench certainly will.  On the first pass, the performance marks (see below) were much faster than the PCs previously reviewed in OS/2 e-Zine!.  In some areas, the results were truly impressive, doubling or tripling earlier performance marks.  The Matrox accelerator also performed impressively well, filling that 21" Eizo display with a gorgeous 1600 x 1200 x 65,000 color viewing area.

With all its speed and power, the HP Vectra 6/200 will really spoil you.  If you can afford the low $4000 range price -- which is competitive for what you get -- this system's a real winner!

Rating:

4.5 out of 5 (On the pricey side, but you get what you pay for!)

-----

System Configuration:

CPU:  Intel Pentium Pro 200MHz
Cache:  512 Kb
RAM: 64 Mb
Video:  Matrox Millennium PCI w/ 4Mb RAM
Hard Drive(s): 2.1GB Ultra SCSI on a PCI Ultra SCSI Controller
CD-ROM:  16X Max-speed EIDE
Floppy: 3 1/2"
Sound Card:  Integrated SB-16/SB-Pro compatible
LAN Adapter:  HP J2585B PCI 10/100BaseT
Price:  US$4,035 (est. street price)
Shipping Area:  Worldwide
Warranty:  3 Years

Manufacturer:
(http://www.hp.com/) Hewlett Packard Company

-----

(http://privateI.com/~chrisw/) Chris Williams has been actively involved with OS/2 systems for the past six years.  A former IBM employee, OS/2 Ambassador, and long time member of Team OS/2, he is currently a PC and network specialist for Perot Systems Corporation.

***********************************

Benchmark Results for the Hewlett Packard Vectra XU 6/200:

Machine name    - Hewlett Packard Vectra XU 6/200
Manufacturer    - Hewlett Packard
Motherboard     - Unknown motherboard
Chipset         - Unknown motherboard chipset
Processor       - Pentium Pro 200 MHz
External cache  - 512K
Graphics card   - Matrox Millennium PCI 4MB
Disk Controller - Onboard Ultra SCSI

Video data
Resolution      = 1600x1200x16 bits/pixel
Number planes   = 0
Screen Access   = Direct
Bank Switched   = No
Bytes/scanline  = 3200
Aperture size   = 3840000
Manufact. code  = 0
Chipset code    = 4139

Graphics Total:      109.743    PM-marks
CPU integer Total:      150.590    CPUint-marks
CPU float Total:       21.648    CPUfloat-marks
Direct Interface to Video Extensions (DIVE) Total:       93.263    DIVE-marks
File I/O Total:     3978.644    File I/O-marks
Memory Total:      242.124    Mem-marks
Disk I/O Total:       40.659    Disk I/O-marks
CD-ROM I/O Total:       61.896    CD I/O-marks

============================================================

Complete Benchmark Report:

Sysbench 0.9.1d result file created Wed Jun  4 18:17:06 1997

Machine name    - Hewlett Packard Vectra XU 6/200
Manufacturer    - Hewlett Packard
Motherboard     - Unknown
Chipset         - Unknown 
Processor       - Pentium Pro 200 MHz
External cache  - 512K
Graphics card   - Matrox Millennium PCI 4MB
Disk Controller - Integrated PCI Ultra SCSI

Machine data
Coprocessor     = Yes
RAM             = 64.00 MB
Priority        = Dynamic
Maxwait         = 3
Timeslice       = (32,32)
Swap file size  = 19.00MB
  ...initially  = 2.00MB

Video data
Resolution      = 1600x1200x16 bits/pixel
Number planes   = 0
Screen Access   = Direct
Bank Switched   = No
Bytes/scanline  = 3200
Aperture size   = 3840000
Manufact. code  = 0
Chipset code    = 4139

 Graphics
   BitBlt S->S cpy       :       58.001    Mpixels/s
   BitBlt M->S cpy       :        7.687    Mpixels/s
   Filled Rectangle      :      398.663    Mpixels/s
   Pattern Fill          :      398.750    Mpixels/s
   Vertical Lines        :       17.390    Mpixels/s
   Horizontal Lines      :       34.585    Mpixels/s
   Diagonal Lines        :       25.644    Mpixels/s
   Text Render           :       25.912    Mpixels/s
   ------------------------------------------------------------
   Total                 :      109.743    PM-marks

 CPU integer
   Dhrystone             :      177.696    VAX 11/780 MIPS
   Hanoi                 :      142.786    moves/25 usec
   Heapsort              :       99.809    MIPS
   Sieve                 :      153.662    MIPS
   ------------------------------------------------------------
   Total                 :      150.590    CPUint-marks

 CPU float
   Linpack               :       11.311    MFLOPS
   Flops                 :       27.770    MFLOPS
   Fast Fourier Tr.      :       19.528    VAX FFT's
   ------------------------------------------------------------
   Total                 :       21.648    CPUfloat-marks

 Direct Interface to video extensions - DIVE
   Video bus bandw.      :       73.125    MB/s
   DIVE fun              :      248.507    fps at 640x480x256
   M->S, DD,   1.00:1    :      249.800    fps at 640x480x256
   ------------------------------------------------------------
   Total                 :       93.263    DIVE-marks

 File I/O - cache read - Drive D:
   4Kb seq.   N     N    :     3348.267    KB/sec
   4Kb seq.   N     Y    :     5067.200    KB/sec
   4Kb random N     N    :      582.623    KB/sec
   4Kb random N     Y    :     1154.933    KB/sec
   4Kb seq.   Y     N    :     5059.323    KB/sec
   4Kb seq.   Y     Y    :     4919.733    KB/sec
   4Kb random Y     N    :      871.269    KB/sec
   4Kb random Y     Y    :      322.400    KB/sec
   8Kb seq.   N     N    :     3924.076    KB/sec
   8Kb seq.   N     Y    :     3498.133    KB/sec
   8Kb random N     N    :     1070.362    KB/sec
   8Kb random N     Y    :     1996.800    KB/sec
   8Kb seq.   Y     N    :     5555.172    KB/sec
   8Kb seq.   Y     Y    :     3631.624    KB/sec
   8Kb random Y     N    :     4543.872    KB/sec
   8Kb random Y     Y    :     1956.800    KB/sec
   16K seq.   N     N    :     4804.818    KB/sec
   16K seq.   N     Y    :     5144.533    KB/sec
   16K random N     N    :     1680.000    KB/sec
   16K random N     Y    :     3276.800    KB/sec
   16K seq.   Y     N    :     5044.701    KB/sec
   16K seq.   Y     Y    :     5171.642    KB/sec
   16K random Y     N    :     2788.474    KB/sec
   16K random Y     Y    :     2665.245    KB/sec
   32K seq.   N     N    :     5358.289    KB/sec
   32K seq.   N     Y    :     5418.667    KB/sec
   32K random N     N    :     2714.286    KB/sec
   32K random N     Y    :     2635.394    KB/sec
   32K seq.   Y     N    :     5242.386    KB/sec
   32K seq.   Y     Y    :    10299.780    KB/sec
   32K random Y     N    :     4276.429    KB/sec
   32K random Y     Y    :     4678.038    KB/sec
   64K seq.   N     N    :     5040.043    KB/sec
   64K seq.   N     Y    :     4978.345    KB/sec
   64K random N     N    :     3377.399    KB/sec
   64K random N     Y    :     3162.493    KB/sec
   64K seq.   Y     N    :     5096.218    KB/sec
   64K seq.   Y     Y    :     7496.533    KB/sec
   64K random Y     N    :     5069.981    KB/sec
   64K random Y     Y    :     6222.696    KB/sec
   ------------------------------------------------------------
   Total                 :     3978.644    File I/O-marks

 Memory
   5    kB copy          :      735.206    MB/s
   10   kB copy          :      365.924    MB/s
   20   kB copy          :      264.087    MB/s
   40   kB copy          :      268.454    MB/s
   80   kB copy          :      247.092    MB/s
   160  kB copy          :      130.486    MB/s
   320  kB copy          :       78.703    MB/s
   640  kB copy          :       51.435    MB/s
   1280 kB copy          :       49.975    MB/s
   5    kB read          :      509.167    MB/s
   10   kB read          :      457.450    MB/s
   20   kB read          :      430.746    MB/s
   40   kB read          :      430.873    MB/s
   80   kB read          :      427.769    MB/s
   160  kB read          :      360.197    MB/s
   320  kB read          :      198.378    MB/s
   640  kB read          :      177.449    MB/s
   1280 kB read          :      177.699    MB/s
   5    kB write         :      531.787    MB/s
   10   kB write         :      434.055    MB/s
   20   kB write         :      367.369    MB/s
   40   kB write         :      368.628    MB/s
   80   kB write         :      366.125    MB/s
   160  kB write         :      362.468    MB/s
   320  kB write         :       58.791    MB/s
   640  kB write         :       50.816    MB/s
   1280 kB write         :       50.895    MB/s
   ------------------------------------------------------------
   Total                 :      242.124    Mem-marks

 Disk I/O disk 1:  2032 MB - Undefined
   Avg. data access time :       12.900    ms
   Cache/Bus xfer rate   :        6.877    MB/s
   Average Transfer rate :        5.502    MB/s
   Disk use CPU load     :       11.000    percent
   ------------------------------------------------------------
   Total                 :       40.659    Disk I/O-marks

 CD-ROM I/O disk 1:   515 MB - Undefined
   Avg. data access time :      152.900    ms
   Average Transfer rate :     1205.000    KB/s
   CD-ROM use CPU load   :       74.000    percent
   ------------------------------------------------------------
   Total                 :       61.896    CD I/O-marks

***********************************


Quake for OS/2	- by Colin L. Hildinger

-----

Moral Repercussions of an Illegally Ported Game

If you haven't at least heard of Quake by now, much less seen or played it, crawl out from under your rock and check it out.  Quake is (http://www.idsoftware.com/) id software's first game based on their third generation 3D game engine.  Their first 3D game, Wolfenstein 3-D, was popular, but their second generation game, Doom, is probably the most popular computer game ever.  Quake was anticipated for several years before its release and provides a level of detail and realism superior to any existing 3D action game.  Released in mid 1996, Quake has been a mega-hit.  The original versions were for DOS, but id has since ported Quake to Windows 95, Linux, and AIX.

CrackDotCom

After its original release, id loaned a company called (http://crack.com/) CrackDotCom the source code to Quake for Linux, version 1.01.  This source code was to be used to port Quake to other platforms ((http://crack.com/about/index.html) Linux and AIX).  Some unknown hackers broke into CrackDotCom's server, put this source code on CrackDotCom's web server and edited CrackDotCom's web page so that anyone who wanted it could download the source code.  Even though the source code was only available for a short period of time, it quickly spread across the Internet.  Anyone who wanted it, could (and probably still can) download the source code to Quake for Linux, version 1.01.  This code has been used to make a number of unsanctioned ports of Quake, including a semi-functional (http://hem1.passagen.se/carebear/JQuake.htm) Java Quake (JQuake has since been taken down because they were using a deathmatch level only available in the registered version of Quake -- they will probably be reposting it with a new level and new models sometime in the future), AmigaQuake, Quake for Mac and Quake for OS/2.

Quake for OS/2

Using the source code to Quake for Linux, version 1.01, an anonymous programmer ported Quake to OS/2 with the EMX libraries.  EMX speeds porting of Unix programs to OS/2, so this skilled programmer was able to port the basic functionality fairly easily.

This original port had some limitations, though.  First, it only supported 320x200 video mode.  This was rather annoying to those with fast computers and video cards who were used to playing Quake at resolutions of 640x480.  Second, it didn't support joysticks.  While most people agree that the mouse is the best input device to use for playing Quake, there are users who, for one reason or another, want to play Quake with a joystick.

If the port was so limited, why would anyone want to play Quake for OS/2 if they could play Quake for DOS under OS/2?  The answer is simple: network play.

Quake for OS/2 supports OS/2's TCP/IP stack.  Quake for DOS will run on most people's OS/2 systems without any problems and it will let you play two player games over modems.  Unfortunately though, for TCP/IP games it requires the (http://www.bws.com/) Beame & Whiteside TCP/IP stack, a commercially available product for DOS.

Even though some people made the B&W dialer and TCP/IP stack illegally available over the Internet for some time, there were still issues to playing Internet games of Quake with it.  First, the copy of B&W that was available was illegal and eventually sites with the file available for download were forced to remove it.  Second, it was difficult to set up.  Many people couldn't make it work at all.  Third, it tied up your modem, so while you were using the B&W dialer, you couldn't have access to the Internet through OS/2's TCP/IP stack.

Quake for OS/2 solved all these problems.  OS/2 users were now able to log onto Internet Quake servers all over the world and launch rockets at each other.

Quake for OS/2 was distributed over the IRC channels and soon ended up on a number of public OS/2 download sites.  OS/2 users were quick to download it and try it out.  Many complained that it should support higher resolutions and joysticks; many complained that the networking support wasn't good enough; and many wondered who the author was.  But most were glad that someone had taken the time to port Quake to OS/2.

Several weeks after the initial release, a second version appeared which supported higher resolutions and seemed to play a little smoother over the Internet.  Most OS/2 users were happy with this, but there was an ongoing debate in the OS/2 usenet groups: should OS/2 users download and play an unsanctioned and probably illegal port of Quake?

The Debate

Early on people seemed to be confused about the nature of the Quake port.  Some people referred to it as a patch to let the DOS version of Quake run under OS/2.  This was inaccurate.  In order to understand this, you need to understand that Quake itself is consists of two parts.  The most important part is the Quake executable.  This is the game's engine which handles the I/O and rendering calculations.  The rest of the game consists of data files containing information such as the levels and the monsters.

The Quake executable was ported to OS/2, but with just the executable itself, you cannot play Quake.  You must have the levels, and the levels are what id sells.  The Quake executable can be freely downloaded from id's FTP and web sites for any of the supported platforms.  Like the OS/2 executable, these executables will do you no good without levels to play.

This said, it's hard to understand why some people have been so upset about the porting of Quake.  The odds that the person that ported Quake to OS/2 is the same person that stole it from Id's site are nearly zero.  This person probably didn't really have to do any work on the actual 3D engine to make it work using EMX, so I doubt that he stole any of Id's 3D rendering technology for use on his own projects.  I haven't heard a lot of people complaining about the Java Quake that was written from the source code, even though it required much more analysis of the code than the EMX port of the original C code.

People who wish to play Quake under OS/2 still have to buy Quake from id, so the OS/2 Quake has likely expanded id's market somewhat.  In short, the port is only unethical in the very strictest since that it was written with stolen code which was downloaded from the Internet.  I suspect that somewhere John Carmack (president of id) smiled when he heard that he'd make a few thousand more dollars because an anonymous OS/2 programmer ported his software to OS/2 and he didn't even have to pay him to do it.

Conclusion?

In the end, the debate is probably irrelevant.  The certain fact is that Quake is extremely popular worldwide and no less so with OS/2 users.  Right or wrong, OS/2ers have been given the chance to enjoy a pleasure id Software denied them, and they are taking it.  And since it is making them money, this is probably something that id will gladly turn a blind eye to.

-----

* Quake
by (http://www.idsoftware.com/) id Software
MSRP: US$45.00 (CD only)

* Quake for OS/2
by Anonymous Developer(s)
Registration: Free upgrade for Quake owners

-----

(http://www.ionet.net/~colin) Colin Hildinger is an Aerospace Engineering senior at (http://www.okstate.edu) Oklahoma State University and has been using OS/2 for the last 3 years.  In addition to being the Games Editor for OS/2 e-Zine!, he maintains (http://www.ionet.net/~colin/games.html) The Ultimate OS/2 Gaming Page and the (http://www.ionet.net/~colin/awe32.html) AWE32 and OS/2 Page in his "spare" time.

***********************************

Nethack for OS/2 v3.2.2	- by Colin L. Hildinger

-----

History

This month I'm taking a little time to revisit a classic game.  I first played Rogue and PC Hack in 1987 and since then I have seen the game progress and evolve into one of the most addicting, complex, and difficult games available for any computer system.  Contrary to what its name may lead you to believe, Nethack is a single player, turn based dungeon adventure game.  It draws from the entire fantasy role playing (FRP) genre and creates a game that, while it appears to be simple at first, is actually much more complex than graphical hack and slash games like Blizzard's Diablo.

Nethack v3.2.2 is the result of years of evolution.  The original game Hack was based on Rogue, which was also a character based FRP adventure.  The game Hack was ported to MS-DOS as PC Hack, and after many changes in PC Hack, it was ported back to Unix as Nethack.  Nethack was a collaborative effort of programmers connected via the Internet, hence the name.  The most recent version, 3.2.2, consists of additions made to the game by the Nethack Development Team and by programmers who created their own variations of Nethack 3.1.3 (NH+ and NH-- are two of the main variations.  Both are available for OS/2 from (http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/) hobbes.).

Graphics Lovers Leave Now

The graphics for Nethack won't excite you.  In fact, the game is completely character based (there is actually a more graphical version out now for X11 and DOS, and the X11 version has been ported to OS/2 using XFree86, but I haven't yet had time to install XFree86 and play it), so it may immediately turn some people off.  This is their loss though, as Nethack is the kind of game that will keep you up playing until the wee hours of the night.

The Game

As I said, the game is extremely complex.  Many actions that are possible in the game, whether useful or not, are things that you wouldn't normally think of doing.  Because of this, there are sites (http://www.yahoo.com/Recreation/Games/Computer_Games/Genres/Role_Playing/Titles/NetHack/) across the Internet with "spoilers" (much of the contents of these sites was gained by analyzing the actual Nethack source code).  While I used to be of the opinion that such things were cheating, I've learned that the game has gotten so complex that to have any real hope of winning, you will need to read through at least some of these hints.  I would at least recommend that you print out a copy of the help file and keep it handy, as there are quite a few commands to learn.  If you have any questions about the workings of the game, the people to ask are on the (rec.games.roguelike.nethack) Nethack newsgroup.  Even with all this help, you will probably see the death screen often.  Of course, that's part of what keeps you coming back for more.

You start the game by selecting a type of character.  Each type of character has certain benefits and certain handicaps.  For instance, barbarians are a good type of character for beginners.  They are strong and tough and let you succeed by playing the game in a hack and slash style.  Tourists, on the other hand, are what are commonly referred to as wimps.  (The best strategy when playing a tourist is to run whenever you see a monster.)  There are, of course, several other types of characters, such as elves, knights, and wizards.

After selecting your character type, you and your trusty pet (a cat or dog) begin your descent into the dungeon.  Your pet will follow you around and generally help you out.  They can even be trained to do things like shoplift from stores in the dungeon.  You just have to reward them (they like tripe rations) when they do something you like.

Your character has all the normal attributes such as strength, charisma, intelligence and dexterity.  Some attributes, such as strength, can improve through time if you do the right activities.  Of course, strength can also be enhanced by Popeye's favorite means, a good can of spinach.  Others, such as intelligence, can't be changed except through magic (if you're dumb, you're dumb).  As you gain experience by killing monsters, you will become a more formidable fighter, but the monsters will get tougher at a rate at least equal to your own improvement.

Every Great Adventure Has a Quest

Your main quest is to find the Amulet of Yendor, hidden somewhere in the labyrinths below.  Or course, no one knows for sure where it is or how deep the dungeons go.  That is for you to find out.  You might even find fake amulets which can fool you into thinking you've won the game, but you should know that it's not going to be that easy.  Along the way you might pick up secondary quests, or you might go down a staircase which leads you down a dead end path.  After descending through several levels you may find that you have to climb back up and find the second staircase on a level which you've already passed through.

Conclusions

Hack is one of my all-time favorite games, and this newest incarnation serves only to improve it.  I wish I'd had time to look at the graphical version ported using XFree86, but maybe I'll save that for another day, or maybe an industrious programmer will port it all the way to a native OS/2 binary.  The only thing to remember is that Nethack is the collaborative effort of literally hundreds of people and must always remain freeware.  I hope someone out there will continue to improve Nethack for OS/2, as it is a true classic.

-----

* Nethack for OS/2 v3.2.2
Nethack Development Team
download from (http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/old/os2/games/nh322os2.zip) Hobbes (ZIP, 866k)
Registration: Free

-----

(http://www.ionet.net/~colin) Colin Hildinger is an Aerospace Engineering senior at (http://www.okstate.edu) Oklahoma State University and has been using OS/2 for the last 3 years.  In addition to being the Games Editor for OS/2 e-Zine!, he maintains (http://www.ionet.net/~colin/games.html) The Ultimate OS/2 Gaming Page and the (http://www.ionet.net/~colin/awe32.html) AWE32 and OS/2 Page in his "spare" time.

***********************************

May '97 Reader Survey Results

-----

Last month we decided to get to the bottom of the stereotype that labels all OS/2 users as "fanatics".  In our attempt to sort the evangelists from the average users, we asked, "Do you promote OS/2?"

As usual, our survey revealed some expected and some surprising information about our readers and their dedication to OS/2.

Answers to our survey were accepted from May 16th until June 13th and any duplicate, incomplete or mangled submissions were discarded.  We had a total of 1,907 readers send us valid replies to our questionnaire last month and the results were as follows:

Have you ever advocated OS/2 electronically?

To start off, we asked readers if they ever promote OS/2 electronically, giving examples such as USENET groups, e-mail, letters to editors, etc.  As most people might, we assumed that the majority of our readers would answer positively to this question, and they did.  A strong majority (79.0%), in fact, had done some sort of on-line OS/2 advocacy since they took up the cause.  Still, a surprising number (21.0%) claimed they had never done so.

Have you ever demonstrated OS/2 in private?

Not surprisingly, considering the response to our first question, we found that a very high number of OS/2 e-Zine! readers have also promoted OS/2 to acquaintances in private.  For this question we gave examples such as demonstrating OS/2 in your home or in a friend's home, and our readers overwhelmingly responded that they had.  A whopping 96.7% of them have done so!  Maybe IBM should be paying us?

Have you ever demonstrated OS/2 in public?

It turns out that our readers are not quite as eager to spread the word in public, though.  When we asked how many of you had done the same kind of OS/2 evangelism at computer shows, retail stores, user group meetings, etc., you reported that the majority had, in fact, never done so.

Possibly this can be interpreted as indicating that OS/2 users are somewhat embarrassed by their use of the "forbidden software" but it's more likely that it just shows how difficult it can be to find a suitable venue for showing off Warp.  Still, only 31.9% of our readers have ever done so.  We wonder if that number is higher or lower than it would be for Windows or Mac users.

Have you ever caused anyone to purchase OS/2?

After the preliminaries were out of the way, we asked the real question last month and found a much more evenly distributed set of answers.  The largest single group of people reporting in last month's survey (18.2%) stated that they were not sure if they had ever convinced anyone to purchase OS/2.  However, those who had convinced one other person to jump on the bandwagon were a close second (18.0%) and almost one third of those surveyed (31.7%) had convinced either one or two people to purchase OS/2.

At least 16.6% of our readers say they have never convinced anyone to purchase OS/2 but the majority (65.1%) were sure they had steered at least some people down the right path.  A surprisingly high 5.9% claimed to have convinced 21 or more people to purchase OS/2 (give those folks an award!).

-----

That's it for last month's survey.  Don't forget to fill out our questionnaire on our web site (http://www.os2ezine.com/) this month and check back in July for complete results!

 
                Complete May '97 Survey Results

Have you ever advocated OS/2 electronically?

Category	Count	Percentage
Yes		1,506	79.0%
No		401	21.0%

TOTAL		1,907	100%


Have you ever demonstrated OS/2 in private?

Category	Count	Percentage
Yes		1,845	96.7%
No		62	3.3%

TOTAL		1,907	100%


Have you ever demonstrated OS/2 in public?

Category	Count	Percentage
Yes		608	31.9%
No		1,299	68.1%

TOTAL		1,907	100%


Have you ever caused anyone to purchase OS/2?

Category		Count	Percentage
No			316	16.6%
Yes, 1 person		343	18.0%
Yes, 2 people		261	13.7%
Yes, 3 people		164	8.6%
Yes, 4 - 10 people	323	16.9%
Yes, 11 - 20		39	2.0%
Yes, 21 or more people	113	5.9%
Don't know		348	18.2%

TOTAL			1,907	99.9%

Note: the missing 0.1% in the above table is due to rounding errors.

***********************************

OS/2 e-Zine! Reader Survey

-----

Have you ever wondered what your fellow OS/2 users are doing with their computers and how they're doing it?

Each month, OS/2 e-Zine! takes the pulse of the OS/2 community on a different topic and presents you with the results.

            This month's topic: Do you use WIN-OS/2?

Just fill in the form at our web site (http://www.os2ezine.com/v2n6/survey2.htm) and check back next month to find out how "normal" you really are!

(Complete results of this month's survey will be printed in our next issue (July 16th, 1997).)

-----

Do you have an idea that you think would make a good survey question?  Many of our best ideas for surveys come from our readers.  (feedback@os2ezine.com) Send yours in now!

And don't forget to check out the complete results of last month's survey, in this issue!

***********************************

The IBM Technical Interchange	- by Rollin White

-----

Each month, OS/2 e-Zine! invites a prominent member of the OS/2 community to share his or her opinions, experiences and stories with our readers.  Knowing that Rollin White, Relish Product Manager at Sundial Systems, would be attending IBM's premier OS/2 conference and exhibition last month, we invited him to join us as our guest in the "Celebrity Corner" for this issue.

He willingly agreed and, with notebook in hand, set out to St. Louis to record the events and surprises from this year's TI.  The following is his exclusive "Man on the Floor" report for OS/2 e-Zine!.

-----

The IBM Technical Interchange
St. Louis, MO.
May 11-15

Each year, IBM hosts a week long technical conference, the Technical Interchange (or TI), focusing on key IBM technologies and products.  Historically, this was an OS/2 only event.  In recent years that focus has changed to include AS400, RS6000, and S/390.  This year was no different.

Arrival and Reception

The whole event started with a welcome reception on Sunday night.  The food was fair, and attendance was pretty good.  I ran into several old friends -- one of the big reasons I like to attend the TI.  The entertainment was a wacky game show.  Think of it as Nickelodeon meets Jeopardy meets the Price is Right.  A little too "over the top" for my tastes, but a lot of people were into it.

The TI consists of three main parts -- the exhibit hall, conference sessions, and the social events.  The exhibit hall had a better ratio of OS/2 vendors to non-OS/2 vendors than last year, however, it was much smaller than previous years so there were fewer OS/2 vendors total.

Speeches and More Speeches

First thing on Monday morning was the Opening Session.  This was held in a theater, where the conference attendees waited eagerly to hear what the IBM execs had to say.  There were not a lot of surprises.  Jeff Mason, General Manager of Solution Developer Marketing and the host of the event, was the first speaker.  His speech seemed rigid, was low on real content, but rich in marketing lingo.

After Mason was Irving Wladawsky-Berger, General Manager of the IBM Internet Division.  I have to give him credit -- his speech seemed to be much more well thought-out than a typical IBM executive's speech.  It was also evident that it was from the heart and not from a speech writer.  The focus of his speech was the market forces driving the global move to doing business on the 'net, such as internationalization, individualized access to information, shortened product life-cycles, and the increase in the at-home work force.

Finally, Steve Mills, General Manager of the IBM Software Solutions Division, gave his talk.  Instead of a speech, he used the opportunity to announce a new product called Component Broker.  It was a typical IBM product announcement that included a good dose of video clips featuring customers singing the praises of the new product.  One character on the video could not have hid the fact that he was reading from a cue card if his life had depended on it.  The audience got a chuckle out of this.

The bad news was that OS/2 was only mentioned once in the entire opening session and that was in describing the availability of Component Broker (after NT of course).

The Exhibition

Later on Monday night, there was a reception to mark the grand opening of the exhibit hall.  This is always the busiest time for a vendor -- a time that I enjoy.  The reception was from 7:00 to 10:00.  During the first two hours I demonstrated Sundial Systems' products nonstop.  It felt like I talked to only three people during that time, but others said it was more like 6-10 groups of people.  It's sort of a blur to me.

The people that visited our booth that evening were really into it.  They wanted to soak up as much information on OS/2 and OS/2 applications as they could -- always a good feeling!  This was a nice counterbalance to the disappointing opening session.

Seminars and Certification Sessions

The exhibits were open during the day for the remainder of the week.  Traffic was considerably less, but that is normal at a TI; during the week, the sessions become the focus of the attendees.  The topics ranged from how to connect your AS/400 to the Internet to how OS/2 stacks up against the competition.  Almost all of them were technical in nature and presented by the best IBM has to offer.

Of the several sessions I attended, the best was on (http://www2.hursley.ibm.com/netrexx/) NetRexx by Mike Cowlishaw.  For those who don't know, Mike Cowlishaw is the creator of Rexx, and now NetRexx.  There was something awe-inspiring about hearing him explain a design problem he faced in NetRexx, and then the elegant solution he came up with.  Several people in the back of the room could be heard saying, "He's good.  Real good."

Also, during the entire week, IBM offered free testing for all of their certification programs.  In the past I have avoided the certifications (for no particular reason), but this year I decided to see what I could do.  The tests were all 60-75 minutes long and had about the same number of questions.  There were a lot of strange, poorly worded, or unusual questions, but I fared pretty well.

The Buzz About Java

Throughout the week, attendees browsed the exhibit hall.  It was interesting to hear the talk from the attendees and the exhibitors alike.  Amid all the excitement, there was a fair amount of skepticism about Java.  Some felt that it was just the technology of the day that IBM was interested in (just like Mirrors, PowerPC, Open32, or OpenDoc before) and that IBM's interest wouldn't last.  Others questioned whether Java 1.02 or even Java 1.1 was robust enough to write commercial software (and have enough functionality to replace existing Windows and OS/2 software).  There was also talk about Bluebird.

BlueBird is the IBM code name for one of their Network Computer (NC) projects.  Select people at the TI had a preview of Bluebird and their reactions varied from, "nothing new," to, "it raised the hair on the back of my neck," (in a good way).  The disparity of reactions seems to follow the wide range of interest in Java.  Bluebird is relevant to OS/2 users because it is based on OS/2.  However, when IBM touts it, there is not one mention of OS/2.

Some Positive Notes?

As in prior years, IBM & Lotus provided access to the conference schedule, session material, and e-mail through computers connected to a Domino based server.  Unfortunately, there were all too frequent problems with the system.  Several prominent OS/2 advocates lectured the Lotus staff about the system's unreliability -- running on Windows of course.

On the final evening of the conference, I was very pleased to be introduced to Mr. Kohichi Yoshinaga.  Each year in Japan, IBM also hosts a Technical Interchange and Mr. Yoshinaga was personally responsible for making sure the name of that event was "IBM OS/2 Technical Interchange".  As my friend Marty Cawthon said, some people at IBM say they are committed, others show they are committed.

I was unable to attend the closing session, but the focus was on the coming era of the Network Computer.  Several friends who attended noted how different the visions of the IBM and Lotus speakers were -- despite the fact that they are now the same company.  Happily, Mike Lawrie, General Manager, IBM Personal Software Products Division, mentioned OS/2 a lot in the closing session, even if Jeff Papows, the president of Lotus, didn't.

A Rewarding Experience

The TI is a long and tiring week.  In some regards it is similar to COMDEX, but because you are absorbing technical information rather than marketing information, you are exhausted in a different way.  This year's TI was no exception.  It was a changing mix of good and bad vibes about OS/2.  I look forward to next year's TI in Orlando.

-----

(Rollin@sundialsystems.com) Rollin White is Relish Product Manager at (http://www.sundialsystems.com/) Sundial Systems.  In his free time he is cofounder and President of the (http://www.scoug.com/) Southern California OS/2 User Group.

***********************************

Setting up a WWW server	- by Jorge Martins

-----

Why would you want to do it?

Why would you want to set up a WWW server under OS/2?  Well, you might want to do it just for fun!  You might be a programmer needing a server to test your client software on, or you could have a specific need to share information on a heterogeneous workgroup.  In my case, as an instructor, I wanted to eliminate the use of paper in the class.

Which server should you use?

There are several Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) servers available for OS/2, such as the Apache web server.  However, I chose GoServe for OS/2, on which this article focuses, because I had no need for more than minimal security.  GoServe is fast, small, written specifically for OS/2, multithreaded, REXX driven and I must confess, I really admire its author, Mike Cowlishaw.  He's the IBM Fellow that designed the REXX language and NetREXX, a blend of Java and REXX.

Your specific needs may be different, so I encourage you to try other servers.  If you 
also use Linux, the (http://www.apache.org/) Apache web server would be a logical choice.  In any case, GoServe might suit your needs and it is very easy to set up.

Installation

GoServe is distributed as a 328 KB zip file, so after a very fast download, installation is even faster.  You just have to unzip it into a directory of your choice (e.g. c:\goserve) and GoServe is ready to run!  It really is that simple.  Installation doesn't even require a reboot.

With just this procedure though, you would have to start GoServe from the command line.  Typing makeicon http invokes a REXX script that will create a program object on the Desktop that starts GoServe as a web server.  You can then shadow this object to the Startup folder and have GoServe automatically started every time you boot your computer.

(GoServe can also act as a Gopher server: you can alternatively type makeicon gopher and the same script will create an object invoking GoServe as a gopher server.)

At this point, however, there is nothing to be served; we haven't created any HTML documents.  Fear not!  In the GoServe directory, there is a file named gohttp.zip.  Unzip this file to a separate directory (for organizational purposes), such as c:\goserve\sample (e.g. unzip gohttp -d c:\goserve\sample).  The file you just unzipped contains a sample home page.

Double clicking on the GoServe icon brings up the main window.  Now we have to configure it to serve our sample pages.  The Options menu calls a configuration Notebook.  On the DataDir page, enter the name of the directory where you unzipped the sample pages.  Notice how GoServe reds out invalid directories as you type.  Hit the apply button and you're done.

OK, now it's time to try it out.  Open your favorite web browser and point it to your own machine using a dotted decimal notation (e.g. http://200.200.200.254/ -- you can get this IP address from your Internet dialer) or your host name if you have either a Domain Name Server (DNS) in your network or a properly configured HOSTS file.

Incidentally, the sample pages provided also serve as a tutorial on GoServe.  There are samples of image maps and forms.  There's even a password check sample.  (GoServe, however, is not secure and a determined hacker could gain access to sensitive data, so beware.)

Creating your own pages

Now that GoServe is properly installed, you may as well create your own pages.  As you might expect, this is also a very easy task.  Create a directory anywhere you want, and with your favorite editor (I use EPM with the HTML extensions) create a file named index.htm in this directory.  Go to the DataDir tab in the configuration notebook and change the directory to the one you just created.

That's it, GoServe only expects you to have a file with a specific name (index.htm) in the
data directory, all the other pages are linked directly or indirectly to this one, and so on...

Performance

For quite some time, I ran GoServe on an OS/2 Warp Connect machine actively serving 10 clients, and I must say, the impact on performance was minimal.  One of the factors that leads to this lightweightedness is the extensive use of threads.  GoServe, unlike most HTTP servers that were born on UNIX, uses threads to handle incoming connections instead of "forking" new processes, thus reducing the working set.

While running, a graphical display of activity is shown, so you can monitor the number of transactions and response times.  Many options can be set to enable GoServe to meet a required minimum response time, such as the maximum number of concurrent connections.  Mike Cowlishaw goes as far as advising users to minimize the main window so that draw operations don't slow GoServe down.

By default, HTTP servers and web browsers use port 80 to communicate; this is also the case with GoServe.  It is, however, possible to run GoServe using a different port or even several instances on different ports, all on the same machine.

The REXX Filter

At the heart of GoServe operation is the REXX filter.  This is a REXX program called every time GoServe accepts an incoming connection.  I don't think there could be a more configurable approach to a web server.  This filter determines which page is to be sent, how to handle forms, what is to be sent to the client if the requested page does not exist and so on.  The REXX filter approach also has the nice side effect that it is dead easy to interface with DB2/2 databases.

This flexibility doesn't come without a price, though.  Bigger filters perform sluggishly and there's no built-in support for CGI.  This has been remedied by alternate filters (available on the 'net) that simulate CGI capabilities and provide other niceties such as multi-homed servers.

Administration

GoServe, by default, operates very smoothly, but when needed, many options can be set such as:

	o  Auditing
	o  Various limits
	o  Various time-outs
	o  Caching

GoServe also provides strong remote control capabilities along with sample demonstration pages.  Using a very extensive command set, it is possible to change the filter, data directory, various limits, reset the counts, etc.  You can also view several statistics and archive the audit file.

After moving the GoServe server to a Warp Server dedicated machine I have yet to experience one single problem with it.  I've had uptimes dictated only by hardware maintenance.  Warp Server helps here too!

Miscellaneous considerations

If you like GoServe and use it, I recommend reading the documentation thoroughly.  The REXX filter allows tremendous versatility.  Also be sure to visit the (http://www2.hursley.ibm.com/goserve/) GoServe web site, where you can find other REXX filters.  There's even a mailing list.  (See the GoServe home page for details on how to subscribe it.)

Conclusion

GoServe is very easy to set up.  It's very fast, versatile, lightweight, multithreaded, REXX enabled -- and it's FREE!  It is a fine example of a properly written OS/2 PM application and a great demonstration of the applicability of the REXX language.  It doesn't offer some advanced capabilities found in other products such as secure transactions, nor does it support CGI without some tweaking but it succeeds graciously at what it attempts to do.

Note: GoServe is distributed under the IBM Employee Written Software program (EWS).

-----

* GoServe v2.50
by Mike Cowlishaw (IBM EWS)
download from the (http://www2.hursley.ibm.com/goserve/goserv.zip) GoServe Home Page (ZIP, 328k)
Registration: Free

-----

(askien@mail.telepac.pt) Jorge Martins is a Mathematics/Computer Science student at Azores University in Azores, Portugal.  He is also a C/C++ instructor at CFPA, an Azorean Training Center.  He has used and programmed OS/2 since version 1.0.

***********************************

Little Helpers	- by Eric Slaats

-----

Last month I had some technical difficulties getting my article to OS/2 e-Zine! so I decided to write an extra column for this issue.  Another programming article seemed like a little too much, so I decided to take a look at a number of small programs I use in my daily OS/2 programming practices.

All of these programs are free and in most cases developed for internal IBM use.  The only problem I had was tracing were I originally found them!  This proved to be a large problem.  I have the tendency not to update programs to newer versions when I have a version that already works.  So some of these programs date from 1992!  (That's a very antique program in our business.)

While searching, I found that most of the helper programs I use came from the IBM Developer Connection CD (DevCon) package.  I had a subscription to this package for some time.  (By the way, it's a very worthwhile investment to buy at least one of these DevCon packages, although I don't know if it's possible to purchase just one set.)  The DevCon CD is packed with little programs like the ones I will discuss here.  But that's not its main content; it always contains the latest OS/2 developers' toolkit.  This contains the latest header (.h) files as well as all the up-to-date API information for the various OS/2 versions.  It also contains demo versions for many commercial developers' tools and products.

Well, time to get off the soapbox, simply give it a try.

Now for the little helpers I picked to help me develop Smalled and related tools for OS/2.  I'll discuss three of them in this little article and another three of them somewhere along the line.  For now here's a cool trio:

REPACK

Ever since OS/2 2.0 came out, developers had the opportunity to compress the resource information that is used by a program.  The resource file used while building an application normally contains descriptions for dialogs, icons, bitmaps, accelerator tables, help tables, etc.  In OS/2 2.0 you could create an executable that had the resources compressed onboard.  This saves some disk space when using the program.

Now I hear a lot of you thinking, "what a difference does that make, since disk space doesn't cost that much anymore?"  Well, true enough, but the main memory and processor of a computer are still a lot faster than the hard disk.  So a smaller program will load a lot faster, even if some CPU time has to be spent decompressing the loaded file.

When Warp (OS/2 3.0) was released, a new compression was introduced -- EXEPACK:2.  With this, developers could compress EXE files when they were compiled, thus creating smaller EXE files which would load faster.  The compression for the Warp EXE files was a lot better than the OS/2 2.0 version.  (With this compression, Smalled 1.45 gets compressed from 140 Kb to 99 Kb.)  The downside is that you can't use it with OS/2 2.x.  Another downside is that you must tell your linker to use EXEPACK:2 to get compressed files.

Then I found the REPACK utility on the DevCon CD.  This small utility lets me compress EXE files into the EXEPACK:2 format without having to recompile them.  This means I can even repack existing applications without having to have access to the actual code.

It's very simple to apply the REPACK utility.  Simply start REPACK with the name of the EXE file you want to convert to EXEPACK:2.  REPACK will copy the original to a .bak file and create a new .EXE file.  I found that this is a necessary precaution because the utility doesn't always work!  With my programs it has always functioned, though.

You can also use REPACK to create files with the OS/2 2.x compression scheme.  If you can get your hands on this little helper, use it.  I found it a simple way to boost the start-up time of small applications.

PMSPY 1.1

One of the first articles I wrote for OS/2 e-Zine! handled the (http://www.os2ezine.com/v1n12/howdoi.htm) message paradigm.  Almost everything that happens in OS/2 is the result of an event.  These events cause OS/2 to send messages to the control window procedures that handle these messages.  In the old days you could simply trace the program flow and see what happens but this "message paradigm" means that programming isn't that straightforward anymore.

It would be nice to see all the messages that flow to a certain application.  I find this kind of information very handy while debugging programs.  In fact, sometimes I find that messages simply don't occur in the sequence I expect them, meaning my program malfunctions.  Getting a hold on how messages are sent can be done by using a debugger (I tried the Borland OS/2 C++ debugger) but I found that tracing messages this way is a very clumsy method.  This is where PMSPY32 comes in.

PMSPY32 is also a program I got from the DevCon CD.  It lets you monitor the queue of any Desktop window, any window in the system, or if you like, the system queue.  The messages with pm1 and pm2 are displayed in a list box on the Desktop.

By default this program will display all the messages that are passed to the object you're monitoring.  This is not normally the way you would want to use it, though.  PMSPY32 has many options on-board to make life a lot easier.  You can select which messages are shown in the PMSPY main window and which are filtered out.  This can be done by message (look at every message in the system individually), or by group.  This last option I find very useful.  If you are working on just one control, you can simply tell PMSPY to only show the messages for that control.  It's even possible to make a filter subset out of this rough selection.

This last option is very handy.  I find it very annoying to let my view of the messages be disturbed by a constant showing of the WM_MOUSEMOVE or WM_TIMER messages.

PMSPY32 has a very large set of possibilities and is a very worthwhile helper.  I used it very intensively when working on the Smalled Drag-n-Drop.  I also find it a great help at optimizing my code by eliminating unnecessary calls.  If you're going to use this applet, give it a little time to get comfortable.  Once you know it, it's great!  (Be careful with looking at the system queue though, this might virtually halt your system in some cases.)

PMTREE

PMTREE is another one of those little programs developed by IBM for internal use.  This is also a program I use a lot in debugging, however, it did more for me when I was going through the process of understanding the OS/2 API and the structure of the PM.  With PMTREE you can graphically display the hierarchy of windows in an application.

This isn't explained in detail in the How Do I? column, but it will surely be in the future.  Every application is built out of a hierarchy of windows.  The Frame window is a good example of this.  It has a title bar, max and min buttons, etc.  All these parts are windows.  With PMTREE you can visualize these parts with a lot of extra info about each.

PMTREE has helped me a lot in understanding the anatomy of certain OS/2 PM controls, like the spin button.  I was able to do some nice tricks with the controls once I figured out how they where constructed.  Making a spin button that only accepts floats and is infinite is an example of this (see (http://www.edm2.com/) EDM/2 v3n2).

PMTREE has a number of extra tricks up its sleeve.  It allows you to send messages to any of the windows in the system.  Although I can see that there's a use for this, I've never actually used this feature.  Just like PMSPY, it pays to take the time to get to know this applet.  It can do you great services in understanding and debugging your applications' structure.

Well, that's it for now.  I hope you enjoyed this little addition to my regular column.  Stay tuned in the future for another like this one!

-----

(eric.slaats@pi.net) Eric Slaats holds a degree in Computer Science and teaches computer technology in Eindhoven.  He is the creator of the (http://www.bmtmicro.com/catalog/smalled/) Smalled utilities.

***********************************

Top Sellers Lists Disclaimer

-----

Our "top sellers lists" represent sales figures compiled for OS/2 e-Zine! by BMT Micro, Inc., Indelible Blue, Inc. and J3 Computer Technologies.  Falcon Networking does not verify these lists and makes no guarantee of their authenticity.  All inquiries regarding products appearing or not appearing on these lists should be directed to the relevant retailer.

The publication of these lists is not meant to indicate an endorsement by Falcon Networking of any of these companies or of the products featured on the lists.

Readers should note that the rankings indicated in each of these lists represent only the sales of each individual retailer.  They do not, necessarily, represent sales across the entire OS/2 industry.

There are many different sales channels in the OS/2 industry and different software vendors rely heavily on some while other vendors rely more heavily on others.  Also, not all retailers carry all existing OS/2 products.  Readers should take these facts into consideration when interpreting the "top sellers lists".

The BMT Micro "top sellers list" represents only the top selling OS/2 shareware applications available through BMT Micro, Inc.  The BMT Micro CD is excluded from the figures to avoid distorting the results.

The Indelible Blue "top sellers list" represents only the top selling OS/2 applications sold by Indelible Blue, Inc.  OS/2 Warp and OS/2 Warp Connect are not included in these rankings.

The J3 Computer Technologies "top sellers list" represents only the top selling OS/2 applications sold by J3 Computer Technologies.

***********************************

May's Top Selling Applications from Indelible Blue

-----

Note: This list represents only the monthly sales figures of Indelible Blue, Inc.  Please read our disclaimer for more information.
	

This	Last	Product				Developer
Month	Month
1	10	Hobbes CD-ROM		Walnut Creek
2	5	BackAgain/2 Pro		Computer Data Strategies
3	8	BackMaster			MSR Development
4	5	Colorworks V2			SPG
5	2	FaxWorks Pro v3		Keller Group Inc.
6	3	IBM AntiVirus			IBM
7 (tie)	6	Partition Magic			PowerQuest
7 (tie)	7	SmartSuite 96			Lotus
8	9	Seagate Backup			Seagate Software
9	6	Performance Plus		Clear & Simple
10	--	Escape GL			Snowstorm Software
11	4	Embellish			Dadaware
12	8	QuickMotion			Practice Corporation
13	9	UniMaint			SofTouch Systems
14(tie)	--	Object Desktop Pro		Stardock Systems
14(tie)	--	Unite CD Maker			Cirrus Technology
15(tie)	--	DualStor			IBM
15(tie)	--	Bitstream Font Collection	Bitstream
-----

Compiled by (http://www.indelible-blue.com/ib/) Indelible Blue, Inc. - Your Single Source for OS/2 Solutions.

***********************************

May's Top Selling Applications from J3

-----

Note: This list represents only the monthly sales figures of J3 Computer Technologies.  Please read our disclaimer for more information.


This	Last	Product					Developer
Month	Month
1	1	SmartSuite 96 Upgrade			Lotus
2	2	Word Pro & Freelance Graphics		Lotus
3	6	LinkWiz				PCX
4	8	Partition Magic v3 Personal Ed.		PowerQuest
5	7	Seagate Backup for OS/2		Seagate
6	4	Book: Getting to Know OS/2 Warp 4
7	5	FaxWorks Pro v3 UG			Keller Group Inc.
8	3	ColorWorks v1+			SPG Inc.
9	--	Hobbes CD				Walnut Creek
10	10	F-Prot Professional Antivirus		Command Software
-----

Compiled by (http://www.os2store.com/) J3 Computer Technologies - Serving the Global OS/2 Community, large and small!

***********************************

May's Top Selling Applications from BMT Micro

-----

Note: This list represents only the monthly registration figures of BMT Micro, Inc.  Please read our disclaimer for more information.


This	Last	Product				Developer
Month	Month
1	2	PMMail				SouthSide Software
2	3	InJoy				F/X Communications
3	1	PMView			Peter Nielsen
4	5	ZOC				EmTec Innovative Software
5	4	XFile				CodeSmith Software
6	7	iLink/2			BMT Micro
7	--	MR/2 ICE Internet Email	Knightware Software Co.
8	8	FTP Browser			Jason Rushton
9	9	FM/2				BareBones Software
10	10	FC/2				Brian Havard
-----

This list is compiled by (http://www.bmtmicro.com/) BMT Micro -- Your Source for Over 100 Quality Shareware Applications.

***********************************

How to Subscribe for FREE

If you would like to recieve notification when new issues of OS/2 e-Zine! are posted, use our on-line subscription form at http://www.os2ezine.com/subscrib.htm -or- send a note to (subscribe@os2ezine.com) subscribe@os2ezine.com with the following information:

subject line:	subscribe os2 notify
message body:	your name

The following is an example of how your e-mail may appear:

To:		subscribe@os2ezine.com
Subject:	subscribe os2 notify
----------

John Smith
----------

We require your name to process your subscription request.  Please send all subscription requests from the e-mail address you wish to subscribe.  Make sure your software is properly configured!

You will receive an automated response verifying that you have been added to the list with instructions on how to remove yourself should you decide to.  If you do not receive this response within a few days please try again making sure that the software you are using is properly configured with your e-mail address.

If you have further problems please (feedback@os2ezine.com) e-mail us or contact us at:

Falcon Networking
4302 NW 25th Terrace
Gainesville FL, 32605
U.S.A.

(902) 461-2266

***********************************

Sponsor OS/2 e-Zine!

* Corporate Sponsors

OS/2 e-Zine! has space for a limited number of corporate advertisers.  A variety of affordable advertising options are available including high impact, inline graphical advertising.  Arrangements are available for multiple issue insertions.

For more information please e-mail sales@os2ezine.com or phone (902) 461-2266.

* Readers Can Sponsor Too!

If you feel OS/2 e-Zine! is useful, entertaining or educational, please send what you feel a one year subscription is worth.  Even sponsorship of a few dollars is appreciated.  Individuals sponsoring US$15 or more will be listed in our Sponsors Page (with an optional link to their home page).

Just send your cash, cheque or money order (made payable to Falcon Networking) along with:

o  a note stating that it is for OS/2 e-Zine! sponsorship
o  your name
o  your address (city, state/province and country)
o  your e-mail address
o  your web URL if applicable

Alternatively, you may choose to sponsor OS/2 e-Zine! by credit card through BMT Micro, Inc. (http://www.bmtmicro.com/).  BMT Micro acccepts Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express or Diner's Club.  Just call:

o  (800) 414-4268 (Voice) 9:00am - 7:00pm EST
o  (910) 350-2937 (Fax) 24 hours a day
o  (910) 350-8061 (Modem) 10 lines, all 14.4K, or
o  (910) 799-0923 (Modem) Direct 28.8K line

Any amount is appreciated and whether you choose to sponsor or not, you will still be able to enjoy every issue of OS/2 e-Zine! on the WWW!

For more information or any other questions please (feedback@os2ezine.com) e-mail us or contact us at:

Falcon Networking
4302 NW 25th Terrace
Gainesville FL, 32605
U.S.A.

(902) 461-2266

***********************************

Our Corporate Sponsors

-----


(http://www.bmtmicro.com/) BMT Micro
Your complete source for over 175 of the best OS/2 shareware applications available.  Drop by today and check out our WWW catalog or download the .INF version.

(http://www.ChipChat.com/os2ezine) ChipChat Technology Group
ChipChat produces excellent 32-bit OS/2 software for wireless text paging and state-of-the-art multimedia Sound Cards for Micro Channel PS/2 computers.

(http://www.fx.dk/) F/X Communications
Home of the top selling (http://www.fx.dk/injoy/) InJoy dialer, ranked #1 in worldwide OS/2 shareware sales (Jan-97).

(http://www.indelible-blue.com/ib/) Indelible Blue
Indelible Blue, a mail order company, provides OS/2 software and hardware solutions to customers worldwide.

(http://www.os2store.com/) J3 Computer Technologies
Serving the Global OS/2 Community, large and small!

(http://www.kellergroup.com/) Keller Group Inc.
Developers of FaxWorks for OS/2 and PMfax, the fax and voice solution for OS/2, with versions for stand-alone, LAN and Internet Faxing.

(http://nick.secant.com/mr2ice.htm) MR/2 ICE Internet Email Client
Delivering the electronic mail features of the future, today.  A product of Knightware Software Company.

(http://www.mensys.nl/indexuk.html) Mensys
The one place to go in Europe for all OS/2 Warp software.

(http://www.pcs-soft.com/) Perez Computing Services
Defend against desktop freezes with Ctrl-Alt-Del Commander and create online documents/help with the IPF Editor.

(http://www.prioritymaster.com/) ScheduPerformance, Inc.
Dramatically improve performance on your OS/2 system now with the patented priority scanning logic and visual priority identification of Priority Master II.

(http://www.softouch.com) SofTouch Systems, Inc.
Home of the bestselling set of disk and desktop maintenance products for 
OS/2: GammaTech Utilities, UniMaint, and FileStar/2!  ---- Your System's Safe and Sound with SofTouch Around

(http://www.stardock.com/) Stardock Systems
Providing quality software for the home and office.

***********************************
Copyright 1997   -   Falcon Networking
ISSN 1203-5696