[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.]


OS/2 e-Zine!		May 2, 1998		volume 3, number 5
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 1998		Falcon Networking  	ISSN 1203-5696

         "Over Three Quarters of a Million Satisfied Visitors!"


         ****************************************
         Hot News: OS/2 e-Zine! goes bi-weekly --
              our next issue on May 16th!
         ****************************************


OPINIONS:

  Chris' Rant


DEPARTMENTS:

  the Beta File
  News from the OS/2 World
  Answers from e-Zine!


REVIEWS:

  Dialog Enhancer 3.07 - Christopher B. Wright
  E-Racer/2 1.4 - Chris Wenham
  Clone Cleaner 2.40 - Dr. Dirk Terrell
  BackMaster Ultra 1.1a - David Wei


First Looks and Nifty Gadgets
  Program Commander/2 2.0     Time Tracker
  WarpBar 0.83


READER SURVEYS:

Results from our April 16th Survey
  Find out what your fellow readers told us last month! 

Your Platforms of Choice
  Answer these simple questions and find out how you compare to
  other OS/2 users.  Results will be printed next month!

Results from our "How can we improve" survey ?
  Find out what your fellow readers asked for and what our plans are.


ARTICLES:

Building Dynamic Web Sites In OS/2 - Chris Wenham
  Learn how to create a web site that is flexible, easily updated and
  not a nightmare to maintain.



END NOTES:

  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 1998   -   Falcon Networking
ISSN 1203-5696

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

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

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

(http://www.prominic.com/) Prominic Technologies, Inc.
On-line sales & solutions for VisualAge, DB2, OS/2 Warp, Workspace on Demand, Notes/Domino, AIX Firewall, and Net.Commerce (design/hosting).  The best deals on IBM and Lotus software and hardware (PCs, Servers, and RS/6000s) -- with OS/2 preloads!

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

(http://www.warpspeed.com.au/) WarpSpeed Computers
Developers of The Graham Utilities -- the largest, most comprehensive suite of disk, file and general utilities specifically written for OS/2.

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

Chris' Rant	- by Chris Wenham

Conditioned!

"Sex me, MTV"
      - Early MTV advertising slogan.

While an early experiment in cable TV programming was getting started, a young computer software industry was hatching a brilliant scheme to expand revenues and assure a long and profitable future for itself.  It worked like this: you sell the same product back to the same customer over and over again.  It's a little bit like the method described in a book by Douglas Adams, where a publishing company sells the same book to the same customer, only in a million alternate universes.  But with software, it's all done by a crafty psychological trick: increase the version number.  The response is Pavlovian.

MTV's early slogan worked on this principle: the words "Sex" and "Me" were known to be 'hot-button' words in people -- words that almost always got attention immediately.  So, if you put them together and appended your company name with it, you'd have a really effective slogan, right?  Yeah well, it was a good idea anyway and eventually fizzed out into whatever they have now.  But its legacy is still with us, for more subtle words are used now, ones like "Free" and "Now". You've seen them plastered liberally over advertisements everywhere.  In the software industry, these words are augmented with "Upgrade," but the message is just as potent.

The trouble is that the upgrade scheme has been woefully abused in the maturing years of software marketing to the point where it doesn't mean anything anymore.  The average upgrade has new features -- enough new features to help you justify to yourself the cost of upgrading -- but it doesn't increase productivity anymore.  The core purpose of most software has been finished to death.  It works.  It does as its told and it probably does it very well.  Why should we need more?

Yet how many times have you caught yourself automatically equating higher version numbers with superiority?  Conditioning.

Most of the real improved productivity is not coming out of upgrades, but out of 1.0 releases of radical and experimental new programs.  Because by the v1.0 point the fundamental concept of the program is already in place, and what comes later should only need to be bug fixes.  It's very rare that a subsequent release offers any real gain over the first version at all.  It's just like the movies; the sequel is never as good as the original.

But at v1.0 the user interface isn't quite perfect yet, and it would be really nice if it had this extra widget, and then it would also be good if it could read a few extra file formats...

And now you have version 5.0, upgraded for $99.  With that and a v1.0 release selling for maybe $199, you've just spent close to $600 on the same program.  Buying it again and again and again, even though you already own it.  And why?  Because you're conditioned.  You jerked when they pulled your string and you marched when they pressed your buttons.

Today it's hard to argue with someone who's reached a nirvana of commercial programming.  Higher version?  Well it must be superior!  Conditioning.  It might be plain to you that the old DOS Quicken works best for you, but your personal needs and opinion aren't a big enough sledgehammer to break through the mental block.  Conditioning.  It can't occur to them that humans are all different.  Conditioning.  We will all benefit equally and in the same way from The Upgrade.  Conditioning.

This is all very nice for the software companies, of course, since they can now put whatever they please into the program, give it a new version number, and sell it all over again.  This does not necessarily help you though, because you're not seeing the same increase in productivity that you did when you bought the first version.

It has led to the "80/20" rule in application bloat.  80 percent of all software owners use only 20 percent of the features that are in the package.  But each time you upgrade, you're still paying for all of it.

To find solutions (and the first one I can think of is to turn off your television) we must analyze what is going into these upgrades.  What can be separated from the product so you don't feel compelled to buy the same program twice?

The crushing majority are widgets.  Widgets integrated into the program maybe not so much for the benefit of the widget itself but for the fact that it's integrated.  Spelling and grammar checkers in word processors, transparent and animated GIF tools in graphics programs, they all used to be separate programs that worked so much better when made part of a larger application.  They should have been integrated in the operating system, but thanks to impatience or lack of technology or both, they got hard-coded into the grand bloated app instead.

Bad idea.

The side effect of the widgets practice is that existing features don't get enough attention, so flaws don't get fixed even when the developer is aware of them. 

For a moment we did have a technology, called OpenDoc, that would have helped.  But OpenDoc was killed (murdered you might say) with the end result setting us back by three or four years.  With OpenDoc, everything was broken up into interchangeable parts that were linked together and integrated by the operating system.  If successful, it would have eliminated the upgrade cycle.

The next possibility is Java Beans, something you've probably heard me praise before if you read my columns. <g>  It's like OpenDoc (and contains some cannibalized technology from it too) but is based on Java.  Anything as large as a 3D picture rendering module or as small as a new kind of drop down list can be made into a Java Bean.  And while you probably won't mess around replacing controls as trivial as buttons and lists, you will still have the power to add more important things -- like an interactive map that finds and adds addresses to your personal organizer, or a language translator for your browser that does a better job than AltaVista.

The Upgrade Reflex conditioning needs to be purged from our systems if we're to see software advance in the next ten or twenty years, because at the moment we're rewarding shovelware and useless features with more and more "upgrade dollars".  This trend has got to stop.  With the distribution methods described in last month's column, and the modular technology described in this one, it'll happen.  Vote with your wallet.

But before you do that, put your wallet away and tell me what you think of this Rant in our (http://www.falcon-net.net/forums/get/ezine/ezine-rant/May02-1998.html) Hypernews Forum.

                         - * -

(chris@os2ezine.com) Chris Wenham is the Senior Editor of OS/2 e-Zine! -- a promotion from Assistant Editor which means his parking spot will now be wide enough to keep his bicycle and a trailer.

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

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!

                         - * -

We'll start off this month with some beta updates to programs e-Zine's already mentioned..

o  (http://www.gwinn.com/) SIO v2, mentioned in (http://www.os2ezine.com/v3n03/beta.htm#sio2k) February '98, has been updated (03/30/98) to (http://www.gwinn.com/cgi-bin/v2beta.cmd) beta 8 (ZIP, 205k).

o  The (http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/hkelder/#FAT32) FAT32 IFS mentioned in (http://www.os2ezine.com/v3n02/beta.htm#fat32) February '98, has been updated (04/27/98) to (http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/hkelder/os2fat32.zip) beta 0.66 (ZIP, 162k).

o  (http://www-student.lboro.ac.uk/~mcrsc/ostrans.html) Dialog Enhancer, mentioned in (http://www.os2ezine.com/v2n11/beta.htm) November '97, has updated (04/19/98) both (http://www-student.lboro.ac.uk/~mcrsc/de/download/inst155b.zip) installer - v1.55b (ZIP, 298k) and (http://www-student.lboro.ac.uk/~mcrsc/de/download/dat406e4.zip) packfile - v4.06b (ZIP, 820k).

o  (http://solo.lhg.hib.no/~bird/HumbleSoft/BootManager/) kBootManager, mentioned in (http://www.os2ezine.com/v3n01/beta.htm) January '98, has been updated (04/27/98) to (http://solo.lhg.hib.no/~bird/HumbleSoft/BootManager/kbm36004.zip) beta 0.36.4 (ZIP, 100k).

o  (http://www.fm-net.com/pillarsoft/warpzip.html) WarpZip, mentioned in (http://www.os2ezine.com/v3n01/beta.htm) January '98, has been updated (04/27/98) to (http://fm-net.com/pillarsoft/pub/warpzip.zip) beta 1.08 (ZIP, 788k).

o  (http://www.cmpsol.com/software.html) Domain Reporter/2, mentioned in (http://www.os2ezine.com/v3n03/beta.htm#dr2) March '98, has been updated to (http://www.cmpsol.com/Dr2b10c.zip) beta 1.0c (ZIP, 370k).

o  (http://www.evcom.net/~software/dcitu/index.html) DCITU, mentioned in (http://www.os2ezine.com/v3n02/beta.htm#dcitu) February '98, has been updated to (http://www.evcom.net/~software/dcitu/beta/dcitu14a.zip) beta 1.4a (ZIP, 600k).

o  (http://inet.uni-c.dk/~deckkh/) CUSeeMe/2, mentioned in (http://www.os2ezine.com/v2n7/beta.htm) July '97, has been updated (05/02/98) to (http://inet.uni-c.dk/~deckkh/CUOS213.EXE) beta 1.8a (ZIP, 1.4M).

o  (http://www.polyex.com/Hopkins.html) Hopkins: FBI, mentioned in (http://www.os2ezine.com/v3n04/beta.htm#hopkins) April '98, has been updated to (http://www.polyex.com/HOPBP104.ZIP) beta 1.04 (ZIP, 130k).

                         - * -

Those who use scanners under OS/2 may be interested to know that (sirish@acepia.net.au) Stan Irish has released a new version of his program PMSANE. PMSANE is a Presentation Manager front-end for the OS/2 version of SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy), a program which provides OS/2 command-line support for a variety of SCSI scanners. Using PMSANE rather than SANE means you don't have to remember a bunch of command-line switches, since the GUI of PMSANE takes care of them invisibly. This new version of PMSANE works with HP scanners and has beta code included for Microtek scanners, as well as a variety of bug fixes (it now works on 4OS2 systems!), minor enhancements, and better exception handling and error logging features. A beta version of (http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/apps/graphics/scan/pmsan025.zip) PMSANE version 0.25 can be downloaded from Hobbes. Note that it also requires a copy of SANE already be installed -- (http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/apps/graphics/scan/sane661.zip) SANE v0.66a can also be downloaded from Hobbes. If you have a SCSI scanner of a type besides HP or Microtek, Irish invites you to help in adding support for your own scanner to PMSANE; details on how to assist are included in the PMSANE package.

                         - * -

As mentioned in this month's News From the OS/2 Community column, IBM recently made available a prerelease version of Java 1.1.6 for OS/2.  This version of Java was, in fact, released within the same month as the reference version by Sun Microsystems.

This version replaces the existing Java 1.1.4 for OS/2 and provides a runtime environment, Java Development Kit (JDK), just-in-time (JIT) compiler, and International Support. Java 1.1.6 for OS/2 Warp will work with OS/2 Warp 4, OS/2 Warp Server, OS/2 Warp Server SMP, and WorkSpace On-Demand.

You can check out Java 1.1.6 for OS/2 now by visiting (http://service5.boulder.ibm.com/pcpd.nsf) IBM's prerelease software site.  You will be required to fill out a registration form, but no fee is required.  Be warned though, just the run time ZIP archive is 7.5 meg!

                         - * -

(es@noos.kiev.ua) Sergey I. Yevtushenko, author of PU Monitor, a small monitoring utility, capable of showing useful information such as CPU load, free physical memory, TCP/IP traffic (for selected interface) and uptime, has released a new beta version (1.10d).

PU Monitor can be positioned and sized as users prefer.

No firm date for "official" release is set at this time, but PU Monitor is and will remain freeware.  The current beta can be downloaded from the (http://www.noos.kiev.ua/~es/) ES Home Page.

                         - * -

After it purchased the rights to Mesa 2, Sundial Systems began a process of updating the venerable spreadsheet package to breathe new life into it.  Recently, they released the latest in a series of "prereleases", (PR 5) of version 2.2.  PR5 includes a variety of changes and enhancements over the previous prerelease, including:

o  Smart Freeze - Title locking.
o  Variable zoom settings.
o  CTRL-LEFT and CTRL-RIGHT cursor movement during editing.
o  Hard return markers in "wrap" cells and text boxes.
o  Printing enhancements including fit-to-page, centering on page, printing just a graph, printing the
entire workbook, and preventing printing of graphics.
o  Enhanced graphs - graphs now have many new options to make them look even better and provide more customizability.  They also handle discontinuous ranges in a more flexible
manner.  Bar and column graphs can display images for the bar/column to produce a pseudo-pictogram.
o  Customizable Toolbars.
o  Movable Toolbars.
o  Customizable Next table.
o  Customizable Menus.
o  Customizable accelerators.
o  Enhanced cell formatting options like Red negatives for all native formats and eight new border styles.
o  Cell notes/attachments.
o  and much more.

This prerelease, like the ones before it, is available for download free of charge from (http://www.sundialsystems.com/mesa/) the Sundial web site.  No final pricing or release date has been announced, however, the MSRP for the current version of Mesa 2 is US$169 (upgrade pricing is available).

                         - * -

(dill@os2ezine.com) Ryan Dill is a student in Computer Science at Acadia University in Wolfville, NS and e-Zine!'s assistant editor.  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.

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

News from the OS/2 Community	- by Ryan Dill

Greetings, all, and welcome to News from the OS/2 Community, a column which provides OS/2 users with info on some of the latest happenings in our Warped world.  Remember, if you have news of interest to OS/2 users, (feedback@os2ezine.com) drop us a note!

                         - * -

We'll start off this month with some updates to programs we have previously mentioned.

(http://www.southsoft.com/) SouthSoft, makers of the PMMail email client, have released a pair of updates to the program recently, bringing the latest version up to v1.96a.  (Those using the older v1.96 which was released April 16th will probably want to (http://www.southsoft.com/pmmailos2.html#download) update to v1.96a, since it fixes some bugs introduced in v1.96.)  A list of new features and fixes in the latest version of PMMail can be found at the (http://www.southsoft.com/suppmmos2hist.html) PMMail History page. (http://www.stardock.com/) Stardock has updated their corporate warfare game Entrepreneur once again. This update brings the program to version 1.2, and adds a number of bug fixes, as well as some new Direct Action Cards to enhance gameplay. (See the (http://www.stardock.com/products/ent/readme.txt) readme.txt file for full details of changes.)  You can download the update from Stardock's (http://www.stardock.com/update/update_ent.html) Entrepreneur Update page.

                         - * -

Some updates to the OS/2 operating system itself have occurred recently.  IBM has updated the IDE driver included in Warp 3 FixPak 35 and Warp 4 FixPak 6, extending support to fixed Enhanced IDE drives greater than 8.4GB, fixing some problems, and adding additional documentation on removable media support. IBM has also updated one of the drivers on OS/2's installation disks to allow for more than 11 local drives on a machine during installation.  Both updated drivers can be downloaded from (http://service.software.ibm.com/os2ddpak/html/index.htm) IBM's Device Driver Pack On-Line:

o  (http://service.software.ibm.com/os2ddpak/html/30ABBBF6ABD9D85F86256598006908FA.html) Updated IDE support
o  (http://service.software.ibm.com/os2ddpak/html/06DA231292D97750862565DA0075AE61.html) Updated installation disks

Additionally, IBM has released some new mouse/pointer drivers for OS/2.  The Device Driver Pack On-Line now contains drivers for the (http://service.software.ibm.com/os2ddpak/html/miceandt/microsof/index.htm) Microsoft IntelliMouse, the (http://service.software.ibm.com/os2ddpak/html/miceandt/ibmcorpo/index.htm) IBM ScrollPoint, and the (http://service.software.ibm.com/os2ddpak/html/miceandt/logitech/index.htm) Logitech MouseMan+.

As a note of warning, owners of the Logitech MouseMan+ have reported no luck getting the drivers to work with their mice yet, though your mileage may vary.

                         - * -

IBM has also been doing a lot with Java lately -- they've recently made available a prerelease version of Java 1.1.6 for OS/2 (see this month's Beta File) which you can download (after registration) from (http://service5.boulder.ibm.com/pcpd.nsf) IBM's prerelease software site, and they've updated their (http://www2.hursley.ibm.com/netrexx/) NetRexx language, used for writing Java programs in the familiar user-friendly syntax of Rexx.  Additionally, IBM's (http://www.alphaWorks.ibm.com/) alphaWorks laboratories have updated their (http://www.alphaWorks.ibm.com/formula.nsf/searchtechnologies/9CCDECA31426CCAD8825646E007D67F3) Jikes Java compiler and released a number of new Java technologies, including a toolkit for using Java to write installation programs ((http://www.alphaWorks.ibm.com/formula.nsf/system/technologies/806aaf30f7617a0f882565e200767cf7) Install Toolkit for Java), a tool which displays information about a Java program as it executes ((http://www.alphaWorks.ibm.com/formula.nsf/system/technologies/511b26a016fd38f1882565e00081c82d) Jinsight), and a Java framework for developing networked applications ((http://www.alphaWorks.ibm.com/formula.nsf/system/technologies/f548f58e8433b468882565e100730885) Shared Data Objects). For full details about the new and updated technologies available, see the (http://www.alphaWorks.ibm.com/formula) Formula section of IBM's alphaWorks.

In terms of third-party applications, Kai Schmidt has updated his (http://SurfCompanion.WWZ.de/) Java SurfCompanion program, which is a variety of programs in one, including a web server, web robot, proxy and local search engine.  To get more information about "Suco" or to download the latest version (beta version 0.99), see its web page. Java SurfCompanion is feedbackware, so any thoughts or bug reports directed to (SurfCompanion@wwz.de) SurfCompanion@wwz.de are appreciated.

                         - * -

A group of people have recently been working on porting the Bochs PC emulator (originally a Linux program) to the Windows platform.  This program is intended to allow Win95 and Linux programs to run under Win95 and/or WinNT.  Why should OS/2 users be interested in this, you ask?  Well, thanks to the (http://www.os2ss.com/win32-os2/) Win32-OS/2 team's PE2LX translation program, a very early version of (http://www.v.nu/core/Bochs/) Bochs for Windows has been converted from a Win32 executable to an OS/2 executable!  Now since this is an "alpha squared" program (the alpha PE2LX converting an experimental version of Bochs for Windows), your mileage will definitely vary in testing Bochs for OS/2, but theoretically this will allow you to run Windows 95 or Linux from right inside OS/2.  To find out more information on Bochs for Windows, see the (http://www.v.nu/core/Bochs/) main Bochs for Windows web page; the current OS/2 executable converted with PE2LX can be downloaded from a (http://ns.htc.net/~nbehnken/) Warp Speed Software (not to be confused with "Warp Speed Computers", the makers of The Graham Utilities for OS/2--these are not the same company).

Note that this is not for the faint of heart -- setting up Bochs for Windows is a rather complex procedure, and therefore setting up this early OS/2 version may be hair-pulling at times.  It also requires power; according to Bochs documentation, "..at a bare minimum you should have a Pentium 166 with 32 megs of RAM." As said before, this is an early version built by an early version, so YMMV. Read the documentation at the Bochs for Windows site well before trying anything.

Still, if it works, think of the possibilities!

                         - * -

A bit of news from Lotus.  As you may remember, for a time when (http://www.lotus.com/) Lotus was selling (http://www.lotus.com/home.nsf/welcome/smartsuiteos2) SmartSuite 96 for OS/2, they promoted a free upgrade offer for the next version of SmartSuite -- i.e., if you bought and registered SmartSuite 96 before a certain date, you'd get a free copy of the next version of SmartSuite when it came out.

Well, the next version -- SmartSuite for Warp 4 -- is out, and some previous buyers of SmartSuite96 are wondering where their free upgrade is.  The word from representatives at Lotus is that when they dealt with the free upgrades for the Windows SmartSuite, a number of problems resulted from the way their upgrade system was designed.  Consequently, they decided to redesign the way they distributed the upgrades for the OS/2 version, so that none of the same screw-ups would occur. Unfortunately, this has caused some delays in getting the upgrades out the door.

Lotus says they're trying to get things done as fast as possible.  In the meantime, all SmartSuite 96 owners who are eligible for the free upgrade should have received a postcard from Lotus in the mail saying so -- if you don't have a postcard and feel that you're eligible for the upgrade, give Lotus support a call (the number should be in your SmartSuite documentation); they have all registrations on record, and should immediately be able to tell you if you're eligible.

                         - * -

(dill@os2ezine.com) Ryan Dill is a student in Computer Science at Acadia University in Wolfville, NS and e-Zine!'s assistant editor.  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 "Answers from e-Zine!", your source for answers to all your OS/2 questions!  In each issue 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 purchased a new hard drive and I'm having difficulty getting it working right with OS/2.  I found that adding a /V to the IBM1S506.ADD Line in my CONFIG.SYS file like this:

     BASEDEV=IBM1S506.ADD /V

causes the drive geometry and details of drive controller to be printed during boot time.  However, the screen is quickly blanked and the information is gone.  How can I get OS/2 to pause during bootup?

A --  You need the PAUSE.SYS driver available at (http://ftp.software.ibm.com/os2ddpak/html/miscella/ibmcorpo/) the IBM Device Driver Pak Online site.  Download the file, run it (it's a self-extracting .EXE file), and move PAUSE.SYS to the root directory of your boot drive.  Add the following to your CONFIG.SYS file:

    device=\pause.sys /w:NNN

where:

    NNN = seconds to wait (default = 30 seconds)

You can press Enter to end the pause at any time.  Note though that you will have to write down any information displayed on-screen by hand.  There is no facility to save it to OS/2's clipboard, or to a file.

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

                         - * -

Q --  I have OS/2, Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 all installed on separate partitions with Boot Manager used to select from them when I turn my system on.  Currently, Boot Manager always defaults to Windows 3.1.  I would like to set it up so Boot Manager defaults to the last partition that was booted from.  That way, if I reboot but get distracted, my machine doesn't always go to the C: drive.  Is there some way to do this?

A --  First make sure you have a working set of OS/2 boot disks.  You can use the "Create Utility Diskettes" object in the "System Setup" folder (found in your "OS/2 System" folder) to create them.

Now, run OS/2's FDISK (either type FDISK or FDISKPM from a command prompt, or right click on the Drives object and select "Create partition..."), highlight the Boot Manager line in the display and click "Options->Delete partition..." (from FDISKPM; press Enter and select "Delete partition" with the cursor keys from FDISK) to delete Boot Manager.

Caution: make sure you have the Boot Manager line highlighted!

Next, set the first primary partition on your first hard disk to "startable".  To do this, highlight the appropriate line, click "Options" (in FDISKPM; press Enter in FDISK) and select "Make startable".

Close FDISK (or FDISKPM) and shut down OS/2.  Now, if the first primary partition on your first hard disk is not an OS/2 partition (for example, if your C: drive is a Windows partition) use your OS/2 boot disks to reboot your machine.  Insert Disk 3 (the "Utilities" disk) and run FDISK.  Highlight the free space where Boot Manager previously was, press Enter, and select "Install Boot Manager".  Add all the partitions which you would like to be listed at boot time to Boot Manager by highlighting each one, pressing Enter and selecting "Add to Boot Manager menu...".  Do not use "Set startup values..." to set any default boot partition.

The first time you reboot, Boot Manager will default to the first partition on the first drive.  However, if you select another partition and boot normally, the next time you reboot, Boot Manager will default to that partition.  Select another partition during a subsequent boot and Boot Manager will begin defaulting to that partition.

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

                         - * -

Q -- I was surfing the 'net the other day with Netscape Navigator for OS/2 and found a link to a file that I wanted to download.  However, this file had a .DLL extension and when I clicked on it all I got was an almost blank page with a few characters at the top.  How can I download this file?

A --  When Navigator tries to follow a link to a DLL file, it gets a bit confused.  Since it doesn't realize these types of files are most likely meant to be downloaded, it tries to display them in the main browser window.  This obviously isn't very useful.

A quick way to save them to your hard disk instead of viewing them with Navigator for OS/2 is to click the link while holding down the Shift key, then use the dialog which pops up to select a directory in which to save the file.  That should do the trick.

A more permanent solution is to Click "Options->General Preferences..." and select the "Helpers" tab.  Click the "Create New Type..." button and enter the following in the entry dialog:

Mime Type:		application
Mime SubType:		dll

Now click "OK".  Highlight the new "application/dll" line in the list of "File Types", then click in the "File Extensions:" entry field.  Enter "dll" and click "Save to Disk" (assuming you always want to save these files to disk).  Click the "OK" button at the bottom of the window and you're finished.  Now clicking on links to DLLs should always bring up a "save to..." dialog.

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

                         - * -

Tip -- Sometimes you may find yourself experiencing error messages at boot time that are not critical but will not go away.  If these error messages require you to press Enter to continue with the boot process they can be annoying since they mean you can not boot your machine and walk away.  To get around this, you can add the following line to your CONFIG.SYS file:

     PAUSEONERROR=NO

Now the error message will be displayed, but the "Press Enter to continue..." message will not -- and the machine will not pause for input.  However, a word of caution: adding this line will mean that if a new error occurs at some later date, your computer won't stop and wait for you to notice any error message it displays.

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

                         - * -

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!

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

Dialog Enhancer 3.07	- by Christopher B. Wright

I'm a very, very picky person when it comes to user interfaces.  I like to be the one who decides what goes where -- configurability is very important to me.  That's one of the reasons I'm so fond of OS/2: the Workplace Shell is one of the most configurable user environments available for any operating system on any hardware platform, anywhere today.

Sadly, it's also not terribly attractive to look at.  Dialog boxes are far too large, buttons are terribly oversized, fonts are ugly, and much of it looks as though it was cobbled together at the last minute.  Warp 4 is a definite improvement over the previous versions in many respects, but it's still not what I'd call comely.  If operating systems were cars, OS/2 would be a Volvo station wagon with a jet engine strapped under the hood -- powerful, but really, really boxy.

There are, of course, some applications that improve OS/2's appearance.  Object Desktop adds a number of enhancements to the OS/2 UI.  There are a few programs available on Hobbes that make Warp 3 look like Warp 4 -- even going so far as to support the new WarpSans font.  But these applications only go so far: Object Desktop only modifies DLLs, so anything that's hardwired to look a certain way doesn't get changed.  And the applications that make Warp 3 look like Warp 4, well -- they only make Warp 3 look like Warp 4.  They don't fix any of Warp 4's problems.

None of the current issues I have with the Workplace Shell user interface are terribly easy to fix.  In fact, fixing them would involve someone sitting down, specifically targeting a problem, fixing it, and moving on to the next problem, specifically targeting it, fixing it, moving on the next problem, and so on.  This is time consuming, maddening work; work that requires extensive dedication to detail and patience that would put Job to shame.

And Richard Castle is doing it.

Richard Castle has created an impressive shareware utility called "Dialog Enhancer."  It radically changes the way many of OS/2's dialog boxes, file menus, message windows and widgets are displayed.  Richard has painstakingly altered OS/2's resources so that its dialog menus are, well, enhanced.

Dialog Enhancer replaces the System Proportional font used by most dialog boxes with the newer, cleaner WarpSans font.  It reduces the footprint of most dialog boxes by making the buttons and text smaller.  It also rearranges many of the dialog boxes so they are more logically laid out.

A good example of this is the Open File dialog box.  Without Dialog Enhancer, the open file dialog takes up a fair amount of space but is a bit cumbersome to use.  Specifically, the Directory and File areas are too small to see any more than 4 or 5 files at a time.  With Dialog Enhancer installed, the Directory and File areas are extended, letting you see more actual directory structure.  Overall, the entire dialog is cleaner and easier to use, while at the same time taking up less space.

In recent releases of Dialog Enhancer, this feature has even been extended into Win-OS/2, with the "file open" and "save as" dialogs mimicking the new and improved OS/2 dialog layout.

Another nice touch in many of the dialog boxes and message windows are their use of descriptive icons (seen here at the right).  Andrea Resmini (well known for his graphics design in the OS/2 world) has created a wonderful set of icons that have been included in many of the file dialogs.  For example, when a dialog box appears that asks you a yes or no question, a sculpted question mark icon is included with the dialog box.  Error messages display the universal "forbidden" symbol.

Installation and Use

Dialog Enhancer comes as two separate files.  One file is the installation program, one file is the part of the program that actually modifies your code.  Warp 3 and Warp 4 use the same installation file, but they require different programs to actually make the changes to their respective environments.  After downloading both the installer and the actual program into the same directory, you simply unzip them and run the install program.

The install program itself is gorgeous -- it has been crafted as carefully as the new dialogs themselves -- but it's a bit slow.  First it archives all the files it's going to change (you can uninstall the program at a later date), then it begins modifying your system.  This took 7-9 minutes on my machine.  During the install, it asks for your registration number and other such information (if you don't register, you don't get all the enhancements).  When it completes, you need to reboot your machine, and from then on OS/2 will use the new dialog boxes, file menus, and other goodies.

There are a few caveats, however.  Dialog Enhancer messes up Star Office's file menus for some reason.  The author is aware of the problem and has mentioned that there is a fix in the works.  Older versions of X-File are incompatible with Dialog Enhancer (but the latest version works just fine).

Also, not all of OS/2's dialogs and controls are replaced.  For example, OS/2's help system is completely untouched -- a shame, because it needs updating badly.  Also, any dialog box or file dialog that deviates too radically from the norm -- for example, Photo>Graphics PRO's "Save Rendered" file dialog -- will not be affected.

You have to uninstall Dialog Enhancer before applying any FixPaks.  After the FixPak is installed, however, you can reinstall Dialog Enhancer without any problems.  Choosing to install a FixPak over Dialog Enhancer is a bad idea -- some of your dialogs will revert to the default mode, and you won't be able to reinstall them.  In fact, you will be unable to either reinstall or use the uninstall program -- though you can uninstall it manually (a somewhat tedious process).

Nits and Complaints

If I have any complaint about this application at all, it's just that I want it to do more!  As I mentioned earlier, I'd like to see the OS/2 help system changed into something more useful.  I'd also like to see more support for Win-OS/2 -- happily, it looks as though that is in the works for a future release.  The (http://www-student.lboro.ac.uk/~mcrsc/ostrans.html) Dialog Enhancer web site states that Castle wants to make Win-OS/2 sessions look more like OS/2 sessions, which I strongly support.  (If you know anything about undocumented entries for the win.ini and system.ini files, the developers would like to talk to you.)

There's also a "Sister Project" being undertaken to add even more features to commonly used OS/2 dialog boxes.  This application, called "Feature Enhancer", will run alongside Dialog Enhancer and add new controls, menus, animations and options -- many of which have been pulled in from the requests of various users.  You can submit your own feature requests at the (http://www-student.lboro.ac.uk/~mcrsc/ostrans.html) Dialog Enhancer web site.

Stability

At times the installation program can be a little flaky, but the application itself hasn't affected my computer in any adverse manner that I can tell.  It is a very stable program, probably because it is not a program so much as replacement resources, and other than the incompatibility with Star Office and older versions of X-File, it doesn't get in the way.

Final Evaluation

Dialog Enhancer isn't a mission-critical product that will save your data from destruction, but it is a wonderful addition to your OS/2 environment.  It's a high-quality shareware product that will add elegance and functionality to many of your old, ungainly dialog boxes.  Strongly recommended.

                         - * -

Dialog Enhancer 3.07
     by (http://www-student.lboro.ac.uk/~mcrsc/ostrans.html) Richard Castle
     download from the (http://www-student.lboro.ac.uk/~mcrsc/de/dl.html) Dialog Enhancer home page (2 files, ZIP, 1.1 megs total)
     Registration: US$15

(wrightc@dtcweb.com) Christopher B. Wright is a technical writer in the Richmond, VA area, and has been using OS/2 Warp since January 95.  He is also a member of Team OS/2.

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

E-Racer/2 1.4	- by Chris Wenham

From E-Racer/2's former name, DupeFind, it is easy to tell what the program does.  Why the author changed it to E-Racer/2 I don't know; perhaps he thought the meaning would be more easily guessed when you pronounced it and found it sounded like "eraser", or maybe it is meant to give the impression of speed ("racer").  Regardless, E-Racer/2 is billed as the fastest duplicate file finder for OS/2 Warp, a tool for trimming the fat from you hard drive by locating and deleting the files you don't need two or more copies of.

Installation and Documentation

E-Racer/2 is a character mode application rather than a Presentation Manager (GUI) one, which can be run either fullscreen or in a window.  The installation program simply creates a folder and icons for it on the Desktop.  Most of the documentation is accessed online through IDK's web site, and an icon that the installation program creates will take you there.  The program itself does have sufficient built-in help, however.

Scanning Files

E-Racer/2 is pretty good at scanning your hard drive, and in my tests I found that it discovered significantly more duplicates than other clone finders.  Benchmarking it was a little harder, however.  Since E-Racer/2 bills itself as the "fastest" duplicate file finder I had to time it next to Clone Cleaner, also reviewed in this issue.  The trouble was that even though E-Racer/2 took three minutes longer than Clone Cleaner to scan the same two hard drive partitions (without help from a database, mentioned later), it also found 4,000 more files than Clone Cleaner (36,000 for Clone Cleaner in 25 minutes, 40,000 for E-Racer/2 in 28 minutes).  No adjustments of the settings appeared to get them to see the same number of files and produce a fair test.

E-Racer/2, like Clone Cleaner, can compare suspect files by checking what E-Racer calls their "signatures", which is probably a CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check) of each file's contents.  This allows E-Racer to dismiss files that may have the same name or file size, but different contents.  It also allows it to find duplicates in files that have different file names.

Also a bonus is the ability to search inside ZIP files as if they were just another directory.  And important for those wanting to refine their search to save time, or screen out files that don't need checking, such as e-mail, is the ability to add directories and masks to an Include/Exclude list.

Keeping a database for speed

Since scanning an entire hard drive can be so time consuming, E-Racer/2 can be set to keep a database of all the files it finds, so on later scans it may skip files that it has already checked.  Indeed, on the second scan, checking my entire drive took only about two or three minutes as opposed to the almost half-hour deep think of the first run.

The only problem is that, at least for me, this database can grow big.  With 40,000 files checked on my hard drive, the database file in E-Racer's directory had grown to 3.5 megabytes.  This could offset the benefits of finding and deleting the duplicate files you don't need anymore.  Deleting the database poses no problems, however, and E-Racer simply does a full scan again the next time you run it.

Confirming the Kill

After the scan is complete, E-Racer displays all the duplicates it found along with full paths so you can pick the ones you don't need anymore and delete them.  Once a duplicate file has been found you'll probably want to make double sure it's not a mistake by viewing it first before you delete it.  E-Racer, being a character mode application, does not honor any file type associations you may have on your Desktop, but does have the ability to launch several different file viewers such as e.exe for text files and PMView for image files.

One feature E-Racer lacks is a "path checker" similar to Clone Cleaner's.  When E-Racer displays files to be deleted, it does not flag whether those files reside in a directory referenced in your PATH, DPATH, LIBPATH or HELP paths.  Therefore, users must be careful not to delete a copy of a file which may be required to reside in a certain directory by some other program.

When the time comes to delete a file though, E-Racer does have the ability to delete from within a ZIP.

Conclusions

E-Racer/2's database does much to improve its performance beyond that of Clone Cleaner.  The character mode interface, although stone-age in comparison, is still very nicely done and may not matter to you if you plan to only run this program once a month.  The shareware version is fully functional except for a 10-delete limit per session until you register.

                         - * -

E-Racer/2 1.4
     by (http://www.idk-inc.com/) IDK Inc.
     download from the (ftp://idk-inc.com/idk/dupefind/eracer2.zip) IDK home page (ZIP, 312K)
     Registration: US$35

(chris@os2ezine.com) Chris Wenham is the Senior Editor of OS/2 e-Zine! -- a promotion from Assistant Editor which means his parking spot will now be wide enough to keep his bicycle and a trailer.

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

Clone Cleaner 2.40	- by Dr. Dirk Terrell

I still remember the day I first got my hands on an old IBM PC that had a hard drive.  After messing around with cassette tape storage on my Commodore VIC-20, a floppy disk drive was an essential item when I upgraded to a Commodore 64.  When I saw this PC with a 10 MEGABYTE hard drive, I drooled.  Fast-forward about 15 years, and I am walking through a large discount store looking at 11 gigabyte drives.  My entire Pentium Pro machine cost less than that 10 megabyte hard drive did back in 1983.  We definitely have it good these days.

But with all this room, we still find ourselves running out of disk space.  As the saying goes, you can never have enough.  Part of the problem is that often there are multiple copies of the same file scattered across your disks.  Edward March's Clone Cleaner solves that problem very nicely.

Clone Cleaner is a sophisticated program that scans your hard drives looking for multiple copies of files.  It is rich in features, and enables you to look for duplicate files that have:

   o  the same name
   o  the same size date and time
   o  the same size
   o  the same CRC checksum

Installation

The program comes with a Rexx script to create Desktop objects for the executable and the documentation.  All you have to do is unzip the archive and run the install script.

Finding Duplicate Files

The main window of Clone Cleaner is pretty configurable.  You can place the toolbar on any side of the window or have it free-floating.  The first thing you'll want to do is bring up the settings notebook to define where and how to look for duplicate files.  You can specify search criteria such as masks (e.g., *.dll), attributes (Read Only, Archive, Hidden, etc.), directories, and dates and times.  You can also set exclude masks and directories.  You can even have Clone Cleaner look inside zip files for duplicates.

Once you have the settings the way you want them, you put Clone Cleaner in action by clicking on the Scan button.  Depending on how many files you are checking and the checking options, this may take some time.  Once the scan is complete, you are given a list of files that might be duplicates.

Selecting a file and clicking on the Info button brings up a little window that gives you such vital information as size, attributes, timestamps, and whether or not the file is referenced in the PATH, LIBPATH, DPATH or HELP environment variables, or otherwise within your CONFIG.SYS file.  If you decide that the file should be deleted, just click on the delete button.

A very nice feature of the program is the ability to take the results of the search and create a Rexx file that does some processing on the files such as deleting, moving, or archiving them.  You can perform this operation on all files, or only the ones that you have tagged.  The dialog for this function has all the special codes nicely documented so you don't have to switch over to an online help file when using it.

You can delete files one at a time as mentioned above, or you can delete them en masse.  You can delete all tagged files or all untagged files and you are always prompted before deleting files.  If you have tagged multiple files, you can confirm each deletion or have the program delete all of them without confirmation.

Clone Cleaner also allows you to copy the results of a search to the clipboard or to save the results to a file.  You can even restore the results of a search which allows you to avoid having to re-scan your drives.

Conclusion

Clone Cleaner is a nice utility to have around.  Sure, it serves a limited purpose, but it does its job very well.  It is distributed as shareware and has a few limitations imposed on its functionality to encourage registration, but the US$19.95 registration fee is reasonable.  Grab this program and give it a try.  You might be surprised at just how much disk space you're wasting.

                         - * -

Clone Cleaner 2.40
     by (http://www.cl.ais.net/emarch/) Edward March
     download from the (http://www.os2ss.com/archives/hobbes/os2/util/diskutil/clone240.zip) OS/2 Supersite (ZIP, 822K)
     Registration: US$19.95

(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.

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

BackMaster Ultra 1.1a	- by David Wei

BackMaster Ultra 1.1a, by MSR Development is a interesting product.  When it first arrives, it shows up in a BackMaster 3.0 box with a manual and an insert explaining that this is actually the "Ultra 1.0", but the operation is similar and the manual is being worked on.  No problems, I thought.  Little did I know I was in for a BIG surprise.

Installation

My system is hooked to a Fujitsu 640MB Magneto Optical (MO) drive.  To those who have not heard of or don't know of MO technology, it is a technology that uses a laser to "melt" a spot to be written, and a magnetic write head to then "reshape" the alignment of the compound in the molten spot; when it solidifies, it will refract the light according to the 0 and 1 data that's been written on the disk.  This technology is slower than newer HDD cartridge drives such as Jaz, SyJet and Orb, but the media is literally invulnerable to most things in our environment.  The only few things I know of that can damage MO disks are fires that burn or melt the disk, acid that etch or dissolve the disk and physical forces that crush the disk to bits.

My Fujitsu MO drive is obviously my backup machine of choice.

The installation program for BackMaster is the classical standard OS/2 installation routine.  At the end of the installation it asks which kind of tape driver you would like to install; since I did not have any tape devices installed on my computer I deselected all of them.

First Impressions

The first feel of this program is that the interface is very well designed and very easy to use.  In fact, I didn't need to read much beyond the first couple pages of the printed manual.  Everything is laid out in places you'd expect it to be.  The configuration is easy: just tell BackMaster what kind of media you use and select the proper configuration for the device location (SCSI ID, logical drive location, etc.).  It seemed as if this was going to be another glowing review of an OS/2 program.  But, to my dismay, several unpleasant surprises were to come.

Somehow BackMaster Ultra was preventing the EJECT.EXE function of NewDASD to flush the HPFS cache, therefore making the MO disk ejection impossible when BackMaster Ultra was running.  To work around this, I had to make sure all the files I wanted to back up would fit on one MO disk, using the directory-select window.

My next surprise was when I tried to recover from a backup that I had just made.  The recovery disk that BackMaster Ultra created failed to copy several vital DLLs that were required for a successful restore.  In the case of someone in a hurry, this could be a disaster waiting to happen.

Last, but not least in the chain of surprises came after I had finally managed to make BackMaster back up the drive and restore it to another computer.  As it turned out, BackMaster either failed to save or restore the Extended Attributes (EAs) for the files and directories that it backed up.  Since these are essential to the operation of the Workplace Shell, you can imagine that this is a serious problem.  If you are using BackMaster yourself, try backing up the "DESKTOP" directory, and restore it to a different drive or computer.  If the Desktop icon changes from a desk to a regular folder, that means the EA was wiped out or damaged in transit.

Final Thoughts

My rating for this program?  Clearly not ready for prime time.  Everything worked very nicely except several critical functions.  However, if these were polished up, I do feel it would be one heck of a backup solution.  But until then, I will not recommend this software for users with Magneto Optical drives.  Admittedly, I didn't have the hardware to test the tape backup, so I will not speculate if the EA backup and other function will work on those systems or not.  As with all things, you mileage may vary.

                         - * -

BackMaster Ultra 1.1a
     by (http://www.msrdev.com/) MSR Development
     MSRP: US$149

David Wei is a first time contributor to OS/2 e-Zine!.  He takes his backups very seriously.

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

First Looks and Nifty Gadgets

First Looks and Nifty Gadgets brings you reviews of the new and novel.  Each month we take a look at what's just hitting the streets and some tiny, but tried and true products that are still helping people be as productive as possible.

This month we look at: Program Commander/2 2.0 | Time Tracker | WarpBar 0.83


Program Commander/2 2.0

Program Commander/2 2.0 has a split personality as both an enhancement to the existing Workplace Shell, and as a replacement for it.  As an enhancement it offers a considerable array of features, from a Win95-like task switching bar, virtual Desktop manager, popup-menu for quick launching of applications, the ability to launch or switch applications by a hotkey combination, advanced marking in OS/2 or DOS windows, a scheduler, custom environment spaces (meaning you no longer have to edit your CONFIG.SYS and reboot for applications like Netscape) and lots more.

As a replacement for the Workplace Shell, PC/2 offers all of the above in addition to massive memory savings.  Without the WPS in memory, you'll have another 4 megs of RAM to play with -- greatly speeding up a RAM constrained computer without having to sacrifice MMOS/2 or the BonusPak applications.  Look for a full review of Program Commander/2 in a future issue of OS/2 e-Zine!

Program Commander/2 2.0
     by (http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Pines/7885/) Roman Stangl
     download from the (http://www.os2ss.com/archives/hobbes/os2/util/wps/pc2v200.zip) OS/2 Supersite (ZIP, 1 meg)
     Registration: Freeware

                         - * -

Time Tracker

Consultants, freelancers, web designers and other professionals make their bread and butter by charging clients for the time they spend working on a project.  You're probably familiar with hourly fees if you've ever hired a plumber, for example.  So if you're one of those whose time comes with a price tag, you'll know it's important to keep a log of exactly what you work on and for how long.  You could keep a diary and stopwatch handy, or, if you do most of your work on the computer, you could use Time Tracker.

Time Tracker is a tiny little utility that floats inconspicuously in a corner of your Desktop.  It has a row of 9 buttons, each of which can be assigned to a separate client or project.  They can be numbered, color coded, or given a letter to help remind you which button is assigned to which client.  Click on one of these buttons and the clock starts ticking.  Click on another and the first task's clock stops, the time is recorded in a log file, and the clock for the new task begins.  This way you can jump from project to project as you're interrupted throughout your work day.

Time Tracker can be set to prompt you every X number of minutes if you need (so you don't fall asleep at the wheel, one supposes) and you can display how many minutes have elapsed for a given task by holding your mouse over the blank gray area.

Time Tracker
     by (Trevor-Hemsley@dial.pipex.com) Trevor Hemsley
     download from the (http://warped.cswnet.com/sysbench/moreapps.html) OS/2 Supersite (ZIP, 104K)
     Registration: Freeware/E-Mailware

                         - * -

WarpBar 0.83

It seems like this is the month for thin toolbar type gadgets.  WarpBar, a handy system information display that runs in a compact strip, is good at showing you all the vital statistics of your computer at a glance.  Date, time, virtual memory, physical memory, uptime and drive space are all shown next to a graphical CPU usage meter and an optional POP mail checker.  Also present is a quick command-line button for launching a program that you type in or browse for -- but no customizble menus of apps.

WarpBar 0.83
     by (alexspan@med.auth.gr) Alex Spanidis
     download from the (http://www.os2ss.com/archives/hobbes/os2/util/wps/warpbar083.zip) OS/2 Supersite (ZIP, 71K)
     Registration: Freeware

                         - * -

That's it for this month.  Tune in next time for more reviews of neat gadgets and first looks at new OS/2 tools.

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

April 16/98 Reader Survey Results

Living with OS/2 often means dealing with uncooperative hardware or uncooperative hardware manufacturers.  We've all probably had occasions when we were forced to pass up the latest gee-whiz expansion card because the OS/2 drivers for it were a poor imitation of their Windows counterparts, or worse, did not exist at all.

Naturally, this sort of hardware dilemma affects the way we use our computers.  Some would say it makes us more resourceful than the typical "plug it in, call your brother when it doesn't work" Windows user.  To find out how much OS/2 compatibility really affects OS/2 users, last month we asked about, "You and Your Computer".

Answers to our survey were accepted from April 16th until April 30th.  We had a total of 1,518 replies to our questionnaire with 56 "spoiled" entries (replies were considered "spoiled" if they did not contain an e-mail address, if all questions were not answered or if they were duplicates).  This left 1,462 valid replies.  The results were as follows:

Did you build or buy your computer specifically for OS/2 compatibility?

Those of us who were foresighted enough to think about OS/2 compatibility before we bought or put together our boxes, obviously suffer the least from hardware headaches.  Wondering just how many of these forward thinkers there are among us, we asked if readers had bought or built their computers specifically with OS/2 in mind.

A surprising number of readers (83.8%) either bought or built their computers specifically for OS/2 compatibility.  The majority of those (and of readers in general -- 61.1%) built their own computers.  In fact, our readers were generally well prepared, with only a small number of them reporting that they had not considered OS/2 compatibility (9.0%).  What was saddest though, is the even lower number who purchased a preloaded OS/2 machine (5.5%).  With the huge size of the computer market in North America, it is disappointing that so few hardware vendors choose to cater to this untapped niche (with a few notable exceptions).

Have you ever upgraded hardware to run OS/2 or run it better?

Whether we considered OS/2 compatibility before our purchases or not, computer hardware does not stand still, even for OS/2ers.  Most of us eventually are faced with "upgrade envy" and we wondered how many of our readers felt they needed to improve their computers' OS/2 performance.  Here an even larger number of you (84.9%) told us you had upgraded your hardware in some way to make OS/2 run better, or run at all.  However, a significant number (14.6%) reported that you have never added to your OS/2 systems.

What was your primary source of info for your OS/2 computer purchase or upgrade?

Strangely, when we asked where OS/2ers get their advice on hardware upgrades and/or purchase, only 4.0% reported they did not upgrade or buy with OS/2 in mind.  This seems somewhat surprising after the large numbers that told us in our first two questions that they had not upgraded or bought/built for OS/2 compatibility.

Of those who did upgrade, buy or build though, the general trend seems to be to seek information on the Internet.  Just over half (54.1%) of our readers told us they used Usenet, WWW or other Internet sites, or mail order or WWW retail stores to track down info on OS/2 upgrades or purchases.  Considering the even spread among different sources of information, IBM did not fair too badly in our survey -- 6.7% of you said that they were your primary source of info for your purchase/upgrade.  The one largest source for info (25.2%), however, was Usenet newsgroups, proving that OS/2ers feel there is no substitute for its direct question and answer format.

                         - * -

That's it for this month.  Don't forget to fill out this month's questionnaire and check back in May for complete results.




                         Complete April 16/98 Survey Results


Did you build or buy your computer specifically for OS/2 compatibility?

Category									Count	Percentage
I bought my computer with OS/2 preloaded		80		5.5%
I bought my computer for OS/2 compatibility	332		22.7%
I built my computer for OS/2 compatibility	894		61.1%
I did not consider OS/2 compatibility		132		9.0%
My computer was a gift / I had no choice		20		1.4%
I have no computer of my own				0		0.0%
I don't remember							3		0.2%
I don't understand the question				1		0.1%
TOTAL									1,462	100.0%


Have you ever upgraded hardware to run OS/2 or run it better?

Category									Count	Percentage
I upgraded hardware to run OS/2				135		9.2%
I upgraded hardware to run OS/2 better		1,107	75.7%
I have never upgraded because of OS/2		214		14.6%
I don't remember							6		0.4%
I don't understand the question				0		0.0%
TOTAL									1,462	99.9%


What was your primary source of info for your OS/2 computer purchase or upgrade?

Category									Count	Percentage
I did not upgrade or buy with OS/2 in mind	59		4.0%
User groups / SIGs						126		8.6%
Usenet newsgroups							368		25.2%
WWW sites								346		23.7%
Other Internet sites						39		2.7%
Friends									86		5.9%
Local retail store						34		2.3%
Mail order / WWW retail store				37		2.5%
IBM										98		6.7%
Consultant								12		0.8%
Print magazine							109		7.5%
Other									134		9.2%
I don't remember							12		0.8%
I don't understand the question				2		0.1%
TOTAL									1,462	100.0%

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May 2/98 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: Your Platforms of Choice

Just fill in the form at http://www.os2ezine.com/v3n05/survey2.htm and check back next month to find out how "normal" you really are!

Notes:
1. Only one entry per reader will be counted.
2. All questions must be answered to be counted.
3. Information must be received on or before May 14, 1998.

Complete results of this survey will be printed in our next issue (May 16, 1998).

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

Building Dynamic Web Sites In OS/2	- by Chris Wenham

Problem number one with modern graphical web page editors is that they are disgustingly immature.  Front Page, Page Mill, Homepage Publisher and others are good for static pages created by novices, but offer the same benefits and advantages to professional builders that a pair of boxing gloves would offer to a watchmaker.  Editing HTML by hand is not the same as building graphics pixel by pixel, because HTML is a High Level Language -- it's supposed to be easy to learn and edit "raw".

In the middle ground, somewhere between efficiency and instant gratification, somewhere between speed and flexibility, and somewhere between static and dynamic, is the hybrid method; prototyping in your favorite HTML editor -- whatever that may be -- and enhancing its usefulness later with the help of an HTML Preprocessor to create a dynamic web site that can be changed automatically or semiautomatically to incorporate new content on a regular schedule.  In this series of articles I'll explain how to use one such HTML Preprocessor in OS/2, with real-word examples of how it was used at a major OS/2 web site.

The idea behind a preprocessor is this: During the authoring of a web page you add shortcut macros into the code, such as "<$Title>" for the tag that defines your site's title image -- which may appear on every page.  In another file you've defined what "<$Title>" and other shortcuts mean, using complete "<img src=...>" tags with all the widths and heights and sources and alternate texts you need.  Later, before you put the page online, you run the source page through the preprocessor -- which generates a finished web page ready to go on the web server. 

You can also tell it to include other separate HTML files, such as common headers and footers, navigation bars, news clippings and more. These are also processed, so you can put shortcuts and include even more files in them too -- building up as elaborately as you like.

The end result is a template based system that gives you maximum flexibility and power.

It gives you the power to change everything on your site with lightning speed, making it dynamic and interesting to your visitors.  For whenever you need to update the site's look with new graphics: you just edit one file where you have defined all your shortcuts and tell the preprocessor to regenerate your site.  No more search and replace, and no more hours of click and drag trying to replace all the images, one by one in a WYSIWYG editor.

The next clear advantage to this approach, of course, is the ability to build a template of your main page and have the preprocessor "pump in" news headlines and other updates by including other files into the finished page.  If you have a news ticker program that can save the latest headlines, wrapped in a hyperlink to a text file, then you can include it.  The same goes for a recent files listing, newest links, a "Tip of the Day", etc.

If this is starting to remind you of a particular OS/2 site you may have visited before, it's no coincidence.  (http://www.os2ss.com/) The OS/2 Supersite was built exactly this way, and this series of articles is going to teach you how to do the same thing for your site.  It won't matter if you run the server yourself or rent space from someone else (like your ISP).  You can run a dynamic site over a temporary dialup connection if you need to.

We'll start you off by introducing you to the particular HTML Preprocessor we're going to use.  This one is written in Rexx by Dennis Bareis and is remarkably simple to use.  It's free, and you can download it from his home page using the link at the bottom of this article.

To generate a finished web page you simply type "HTMLPP source.it" on the command line, and wait for it to pop "source.html" into the same directory.  Alternately you could name the output file and directory more explicitly by typing "HTMLPP source.it /OUTPUT:pages\index.html".
 
Other preprocessors in use today are the "Server-side includes", usually recognized by the "SHTML" extension in the URL. These are processed by the server a split second before the page is sent to you, allowing it to include up-to-the-second news.  They're popular for interactive pages that allow visitors to record their comments at the bottom of an article.  You can see an example of this at (http://slashdot.org/) Slashdot.org.

On a more advanced level are database driven sites, which store all their content in a database such as DB2 or Oracle, injecting stories and content into template files as they get called by the visitor.  Usually these setups will have a caching system too -- to keep popular pages around for a while in finished form and reduce the computing load.  (http://www.news.com/) News.Com is a classic example of this technique in action.  You can usually detect these systems at work by the even more complex URLs that point to them, such as this example:

 (http://www.news.com/Rumors/0,29,,00.html?st.ne.rum.idx.gif.a) http://www.news.com/Rumors/0,29,,00.html?st.ne.rum.idx.gif.a

At the moment, database driven sites like these are just a wee bit out of my league, so I won't be covering them in this series.  Once I get a handle on them, expect me to write about it here.

That does it for the introduction.  In the next issue of OS/2 e-Zine! I'll walk you through our first example and show you how to effortlessly maintain two different versions of your web page (A Netscape enhanced one with plenty of goodies, and a plain version for WebEx and Lynx surfers) without going mad.

                         - * -

HTML Preprocessor version 98.125
     by (http://www.ozemail.com.au/~dbareis/) Dennis Bareis
     download from (http://www.ozemail.com.au/~dbareis/zips_fw/hpp98125.zip) Dennis Bareis's home page (ZIP, 85K)
     Registration: Freeware

(chris@os2ezine.com) Chris Wenham is the Senior Editor of OS/2 e-Zine! -- a promotion from Assistant Editor which means his parking spot will now be wide enough to keep his bicycle and a trailer.

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

OS/2 Top Sellers Lists

Each month OS/2 e-Zine! gathers data from various OS/2 retailers on the hottest selling OS/2 applications from around the world and presents the findings right here.  Because of the unique on-line OS/2 community, these lists may represent shareware, commercial software or a combination of the two.

We are pleased to bring you the top selling software lists from the following vendors:

o  BMT Micro

Note: These lists represent only the monthly sales figures of the respective retailers.  The list above is presented in alphabetical order.  It is not OS/2 e-Zine!'s intention to recommend one retailer over another.  Please see our disclaimer below for more information.

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

April's Top Selling Apps from BMT Micro

This		Last					Product		Developer
Month	Month
1	1	InJoy				F/X Communications
2	2	ProNews/2			Panacea Software
3	3	PMView				Peter Nielsen
4	5	PMMail				SouthSide Software
5	4	Dialog Enhancer		Richard Castle
6	10	X-File				CodeSmith Software
7	6	ZOC					EmTec
8	9	HomePage Publisher	JBC
9	8	SIO					The Software Division
10	--	X-It					CodeSmith Software

                         - * -

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

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

Top Sellers Lists Disclaimer

Our "top sellers lists" represent sales figures compiled for OS/2 e-Zine! by (http://www.bmtmicro.com/) BMT Micro, Inc., (http://www.indelible-blue.com/) Indelible Blue, Inc., (http://www.os2store.com/) J3 Computer Technologies and (http://www.mensys.nl/indexuk.html) Mensys.  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.

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

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

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

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 admin@os2ss.com or phone at (800) 595-1974 (Toll free - US & Canada) or (352) 335-9693 (Outside US & Canada).

* 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
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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

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

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

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

(http://www.prominic.com/) Prominic Technologies, Inc.
On-line sales & solutions for VisualAge, DB2, OS/2 Warp, Workspace on Demand, Notes/Domino, AIX Firewall, and Net.Commerce (design/hosting).  The best deals on IBM and Lotus software and hardware (PCs, Servers, and RS/6000s) -- with OS/2 preloads!

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

(http://www.warpspeed.com.au/) WarpSpeed Computers
Developers of The Graham Utilities -- the largest, most comprehensive suite of disk, file and general utilities specifically written for OS/2.

***********************************
Copyright 1998   -   Falcon Networking
ISSN 1203-5696