[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!		July 16, 1998		volume 3, number 10
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 1998		Falcon Networking  	ISSN 1203-5696

         "Over Three Quarters of a Million Satisfied Visitors!"


OPINIONS:

  Chris' Rant


DEPARTMENTS:

  OS/21st
  How Do I?


REVIEWS:

  SUNDIAL SYSTEMS' SUITE

  Overview - Chris Wenham
  Clearlook - Christopher B. Wright
  DBExpert - Chris Wenham
  Mesa 2 2.1.6 - Michael Semon
  Mesa 2 2.2 PreRelease 6 - Michael Semon 
  Approach - Christopher B. Wright


READER SURVEYS:

Results from our June 28th Survey
  Find out what your fellow readers told us last month! 

RealAudio Support for OS/2
  Answer these simple questions and find out how you compare to
  other OS/2 users.  Results will be printed next month!


ARTICLES:

MP3 in OS/2 - Samuel Audet
  Samuel Audet tells us what those MP3 files we've been hearing about
  are and how we can take advantage of them with OS/2.


END NOTES:

Top Software:
  BMT Micro
  Indelible Blue


ADMINISTRIVIA:

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


Copyright 1998   -   Falcon Networking
ISSN 1203-5696

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

Free Software Versus The Juggernaut	- by Chris Wenham

Why even a flood of free and open software isn't enough to thwart Microsoft

Now that OS/2 is out of the desktop domination race and Microsoft doesn't even have to try squashing us anymore, the center of attention has turned to a Linux vs. Windows race. Or more accurately, an Open Software vs. Microsoft race. The premise is that Microsoft, being a for-profit software company, cannot compete with software that's free. Well unfortunately the open software advocates are wrong, Microsoft can.

Software does not live or die on price alone. If it did then Linux would already have the 300 million estimated seats that Windows has. It also does not depend entirely on marketing or preloads anymore. What is beginning to count most in the Internet era is content, access to it, the distribution of it, and the money to buy more of it. Most new PCs are being sold today to people who want to go web surfing, not to word process.

When the Java hype got rolling three years ago, Microsoft was paying attention. Here was a threat, the first in a trend, that set out to remove Microsoft's chief advantage of available applications for their Windows platform. Microsoft knew that in a few short years computers would be so powerful that even running software in an emulator (the Java virtual machine) would be hardly noticeable to the user. Gone is the performance advantage of native software when only a benchmark can tell the difference. Also gone would be the ease of use advantage when Linux got easier to install and came with a nicer user interface. 

Probably what caused Microsoft's famous "turn on a dime" maneuver of late '95 was when they realized that the desktop was lost, and what mattered now more than anything was control of content. "We woke up thinking 'browser share'" in their words. Instantly MSN was re-purposed, MSNBC and Slate were born. Bill Gates sought successfully to become the worlds largest copyright holder and money began pouring into companies working on content packaging and distribution (RealNetworks, developer of RealAudio and RealVideo), even into the company who made the computers used by the leading majority of creative types: Apple.

Turn to present, and the desktop race has long since been supplanted by the browser race. Microsoft is even desperate to get this one in the basket quickly, giving away its browser for free, muscling vendors into bundling IE with Windows 95, and finally forcing the issue by "integrating" it with Windows 98 until the two are inseparable. It's no mistake that Windows 98 also contains the WebTV technology they paid too much for a year ago -- the desktop is to become a television screen.

If this is their strategy then the company's other antics start to make sense. They know Java and/or its successors are not going to go away, but if they could get Sun tangled up in a brouhaha of lawsuits then Microsoft will have bought itself both time (to squeeze their API dominance for as much market share in the new medium as possible before it dries up) and distraction for the companies who think Microsoft still cares about the desktop in the same way they used to.

It also accounts for the sudden urge to get the horrifically unfinished Windows 98 out before the DOJ can force them to split it up. It's clear that it wouldn't have been shipped this early if the antitrust case never happened -- the number of users having problems installing it is twice as great as it was with Windows 95. Not even Microsoft, long heralded as the champion of buggy software, would ship something that bad.

IE's purpose in life is not to be the best browser, not even to be a nice GUI for Windows, but to get Microsoft control of the HTML and upcoming XML standards. Believe me, once Microsoft thinks it can get away with it, it'll flip the bird to the W3 and start delivering on its own plans for the encoding of Internet content.

The idea, of course, is to make sure that the staggering amounts of content that Microsoft is buying up will only be viewable with Microsoft programs.

This content may start to include your favorite movies and TV shows, your favorite music, your favorite books and your favorite paintings. Microsoft will be able to purchase the rights to all this, acquiring songs and albums in the hundreds of thousands, TV shows by the season, movies by the sequel, and books by the gigabyte. Think you'll still get by on CDs? Well can you buy vinyl anymore? What happens when the music publishers decide they can make even more profit by scrapping the plastic medium and streaming music over the Internet instead?

Right now, Microsoft is already testing its ability to serve terabytes worth of data to millions of customers, ready for the day when we all have to pay to get access to it. Not even free software will be able to compete then. If it still can't even emulate the full Win32 API, what makes anyone think it'll keep up with an ever changing method of content encoding? By the time there's a free software equivalent for your word processor, spreadsheet, accounting package and all of the other boring applications that aren't sexy enough to warrant as much attention as an MP3 player, the race will have moved on to the next stage. Linux will still only be a hobbyist's OS and the open-source Netscape won't be able to read as much as your friend's personal home page. Don't expect an ounce of mass-market penetration.

The Achilles Heel of Charles Foster Gates

Yet Microsoft is terrible at the content game. You remember how much of a bomb Sidewalk was? That was supposed to eventually displace the local newspapers! Microsoft's programmer-centric culture is woefully out of tune with the creative and Madison Avenue types that make the broadcast and publishing industries go. In fact, so is much of Silicon Valley. Not only are they alienating the journalists and producers they hire, but they're also treating content as if it was another software program and as a result failing to take full advantage of it. They just don't "get it" yet.

But it's my feeling that this flaw won't last for long. Microsoft knows what's important and their history shows that they usually get things right on the third try of anything. They have a habit of simply acquiring the brainpower they need, and one day they're going to hire a man who knows how to run the content side of the operation right. When that happens, the slim window of opportunity for anyone outside of Microsoft, open software advocate or not, to sabotage their plans will close.

It's a very gloomy prediction, but that's the way I think it is. What will prevent free and open software from taking over the world, the way its proponents predict, is the simple combination of proprietary content and proprietary encoding of that content.

Money will make sure that there's little or no worthwhile content left that can still be read by open browsers like Netscape, or televisions unequipped with WebTV. And Microsoft has 10 billion dollars in the bank that isn't doing anything right now.

I'd like to hear what you think of this grand conspiracy theory. Crackpot time or crackdown time? Give me your thoughts in our (http://www.os2ezine.com/forums/get/forums/rant/July16-1998.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.

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

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

OS/21st	- by Sam Henwrich 

Plug n Play

While spending time reading the web news sites I noticed banner ads for something called the "(http://www.snapserver.com/) Snap! Server" - a buttonless box that you plug into the LAN, switch on, and forget about. It supplies up to 12 gigs of hard drive storage space, available instantly on the network the moment you plug it in. It's like the network equivalent of bolting an extra bedroom onto your house, with all the plumbing and wiring already taken care of. A smart idea, because one of these boxes is much cheaper (not to mention much more convenient) than assembling or buying a whole PC just to supply another networked drive. 

It occurred to me then that this is just the kind of idea that OS/2 can be applied to successfully for two reasons: 1) The OS inside these boxes doesn't matter, as long as it can speak the network's protocol. And 2) In a sealed box, stability must be of utmost importance. 

The "Think Tank"

Now that the idea of plugging in extra storage space has already been thought of by the makers of the "Snap!" server, I began thinking about other applications. The first I came up with was far out and improbable, but has grown on me as something that could actually work: a CPU server - a box that has no useful storage space, but maybe one or more high-end CPUs. Inside would be OS/2 and a Java virtual machine. The box would be plugged into the network and become instantly available as a "think tank" - able to unload processor intensive tasks from other workstations on the network. 

The idea is that programs which require a lot of CPU power would have much of their number crunching routines implemented in Java modules. An example of which might be the plug-ins available for PhotoShop and other graphics software. When you come around to using one of these functions, the Java module is quickly uploaded to the "think tank" along with the data and parameters it's to work on. This sealed box then begins to work on the job while the user's workstation is free to do other tasks. If the job is something that's easily split up among multiple CPUs (such as the multi-CPU technology found in ColorWorks for OS/2) then the job could even be distributed across two or more of these boxes, getting the job done even quicker. 

The "think tank" would be almost limitless in potential, and thanks to Java, the OS inside doesn't matter to the network on the outside. 

The technology to build the box is already here, but the applications aren't. As far as I know, there aren't any Java plug-ins for PhotoShop or any other similar, processor intensive application (short of those already written in Java), but with the standards for distributed computing already set by IBM and OS/2 with DSOM (Distributed System Object Model) we're not far away. There's nothing to say that a spreadsheet or 3D modeler couldn't off-load tasks in the same way as a paint program could.

It's a bit high-end, but imagine the convenience of just plugging in more CPU power to be used globally across the network instead of the labor and expense of upgrading each workstation individually. Best of all, with Java, it doesn't matter that the OS inside is OS/2.

The Media Server

Of course, if it's possible to do this trick with hard drive space, why not other storage mediums? Why not instant CD-ROM jukeboxes or a rack of tape drives for heavy duty backup? OS/2 has excellent SCSI support, which is just what you'd need for this kind of device. 

If you think this is a good idea or a lousy one, don't forget to let me know and share your own ideas for the future of OS/2 in our (http://www.os2ezine.com/forums/get/forums/os21st/July16-1998.html) Hypernews discussion forum.

                         - * -

Sam Henwrich is an upstate NY OS/2 user. He can be reached at (henwrich@yahoo.com) henwrich@yahoo.com.

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

How Do I?	- by Eric Slaats

Pop me up (Scottie)

Hi all. Once again I missed a month. As usual the last month before the summer holidays are overloaded with 'last minute' work, so I didn't have the chance to do much on programming stuff. Most of my hours went to management chores (I hate that). The only thing I had the chance to take a look at is another Java development package. I toyed around with Borland's JBuilder. This is really a great package! It really is a pity that such stuff (with the exception of Visual Age) isn't available for OS/2. On the up side OS/2 runs Java stuff really well. It takes a little getting used to, but I think Java applets which can run on a multitude of platforms are the future of software. Luckily for us C people, Java has a lot in common with C, so the learning time shouldn't be that long. On the other hand, Java is still in its infancy and although much has been learned from other programming languages and environments, there is room for improvement. Faster VMs is one of them. If I get a better grip on things, I'll report some of the Java stuff in here. 

This month we'll make a start with the use of popup menus and subclassing. Pop-ups are an underestimated part of the GUI as far as I'm concerned. As a principle, a popup menu can be used on every control (window) in an application. So with little effort a context sensitive menu can be created. An example of this can be seen in Smalled. In Smalled the main edit window has a context popup. But also the statusbar has a separate popup. This goes even further, separate parts of the statusbar each have their own distinct popup.

In a popup we can use every trick that can be used in normal menu's. So stuff like bitmaps, check marks, cascade menu's etc. are available. (I paid attention to the possibilities of menus in an earlier column. So for enhancing the pop-ups, read some of my earlier work in the e-Zine!) 

So lets define a simple popup menu. This can be done with a simple editor by creating the following entry in the RC file. (Most compilers have a visual editor for creating these components.)

MENU POPUP1
BEGIN
	MENUITEM "Item ~1", 1001
	MENUITEM "Item ~2", 1002
	MENUITEM SEPARATOR
	MENUITEM "Item ~3", 1003
	MENUITEM "Item ~4", 1004
END

As you may notice there is no real difference in the way a popup is defined from a normal menu. The only difference is the way the menu component is used. Now that we've defined a popup, lets check out how to use it.

A popup should appear when the event of a right mouse click happens over a control. There are several messages that can be used to intercept a mouse click. A quick look at the messages reveals the following (we keep it narrowed down to the right button):

WM_BUTTON2CLICK
WM_BUTTON2DBLCLICK
WM_BUTTON2DOWN
WM_BUTTON2UP

In this case the WM_BUTTON2DBLCLICK can't be used since a popup is started on a single click. The other three could be used to initiate the popup. However, there is one problem. People can be right and left handed. OS/2 has always supported left as right handed people. In the mouse settings, this can be changed (left handed people will use the button1 to call a popup) . Besides that, in the mouse properties -> mappings page a user can set the key/button combinations that must produce a context-popup. This can even be mapped to a double-click. So we're back were we started. Of course the mouse settings can be queried from the system. If we know the settings we can check them an create a complex event handler that will check the events against the settings the user has made (in the worst case, left handed, SHIFT-ALT-CTRL double-click button1). This sounds like a lot of work, besides it isn't very elegant. We could be blunt and simply use the BUTTON2CLICK, but that would also be a rather crude solution. In most cases when there are a lot of system settings involved, OS/2 has the solution onboard. So let's check a little further.

Lucky us there also exists a WM_CONTEXTMENU message. This is a message that occurs when the user requests a popup menu. So this message should be turned on in the settings as the user entered them in the mappings page (it's very simple to test the effect of the WM_CONTEXTMENU message. Simply start the sample application you'll find linked to at the bottom of this article, then open the mouse settings notebook in the OS/2 System folder and go to the mappings page. Make a change to the popup section and test the changes in the sample application. The notebook doesn't have to be closed to make the changes effective. After this experiment, you can simply click the undo button and close the notebook and everything will be back to normal.)

Right now we're able to intercept the event that will occur when the user wants a popup. It isn't that simple that this will also invoke the popup. Invoking the popup has to be done in the code that is placed in the event handler for the WM_CONTEXTMENU message. To present a popup the API call WinPopupMenu has to be used. This function looks like this:

rc = WinPopupMenu(hwndParent, hwndOwner, hwndPopup, x, y, idItem, fs);
 
HWND     hwndParent;  //  Parent-window handle. 
HWND     hwndOwner;   //  Owner-window handle. 
HWND     hwndPopup;   //  Pop-up menu-window handle. 
LONG     x;           //  x-coordinate of the pop-up menu position.
LONG     y;           //  y-coordinate of the pop-up menu position. 
LONG     idItem;      //  Item identity. 
ULONG    fs;          //  Options. 
BOOL     rc;          //  Pop-up menu invoked indicator.

Let's take a look at the required parameters and how we can get hold of valid values for them. The first two parameters are the Parent and Owner window handles (In one of my (http://www.os2ezine.com/v2n6/howdoi.htm) earlier columns I talked about the difference between parent and owner windows.) In this case the window handle of the dialog will do. So the hwndDlg variable that is defined in the dialog procedure header will be sufficient. 

The Popup window handle hwndMenu is a variable that will contain the menu handle of the popup after it is displayed. For this variable we have to supply an empty one, so we simply declare one in the event handler. The x and y coordinates of the popup define the left bottom corner of spot were the popup will occur. These coordinates are defined against the parent window, meaning the lower left corner of the parent window is the "0,0" coordinate. What we want is that the popup displays at the mouse position, so we have to get hold of the x and y coordinates of the mouse relative to the parent window. We could use the WinQueryPointerPos API, but that would give the pointer position on the desktop and we'd still have to recalculate the position in the parent window. This sounds complex, so it's not a good idea. If we reexamine the WM_CONTEXTMENU massage we'll see that the MP1 parameter contains a variable of the POINTS type (contains two short values that make up for an x and a y value). This Points variable contains the x and y value of the mouse pointer relative the left bottom of the window on which the popup event occurred. This is exactly what we need.

The next parameter is the item id in the popup that will appear directly under the mouse pointer, or is selected as a default. This is related to the last parameter the options. 

The options dictate among other things how the idItem value has to be interpreted. The following items could be ordered together:

PU_POSITIONONITEM : Position the pop-up menu so that the item identified by the idItem parameter of the top-level menu specified by the hwndMenu parameter will lie directly under the x,y coordinates.

PU_HCONSTRAIN : Constrain the pop-up menu so that its width is wholly visible on the desktop (meaning the coordinates might be altered by OS/2 to make this possible.) PU_VCONSTRAIN does the same for the vertical display of the popup.

PU_MOUSEBUTTON1DOWN : The pop-up menu is initialized with mouse button 1 depressed. The pop-up is displayed as long as the button is depressed. Menu items can be selected by moving the cursor over the menu. PU_MOUSEBUTTON2DOWN, PU_MOUSEBUTTON3DOWN do the same for the other two mouse buttons.
            
PU_NONE : The pop-up menu is to be presented uninfluenced by the user interaction which caused it to be summoned. This is the default value. 
     
PU_SELECTITEM : The item identified by idItem is to be selected. This is only valid if PU_NONE is also set. 
 
The following list shows the input device valid for interaction with the pop-up menu with each option: 

PU_KEYBOARD : The keyboard. 
PU_MOUSEBUTTON1 : Mouse button 1. 
PU_MOUSEBUTTON2 : Mouse button 2. 
PU_MOUSEBUTTON3 : Mouse button 3. 
  
I guess now things are starting to dazzle. I'll put together the full API call in a moment. In the meantime take a minute to reflect the possibilities all these options give. The most common method of putting together a popup is first to make sure it is always fully visible. We can make sure this happens by using the horizontal en vertical restraining option PU_HCONSTRAIN and PU_VCONSTRAIN. Besides that we want the popup to be handled by the keyboard and a mouse button. This gives the following options line:

PU_HCONSTRAIN | PU_VCONSTRAIN | PU_MOUSEBUTTON1 | PU_KEYBOARD

Now we can put together the complete call to display the popup, the complete event handler will look like this:

case WM_CONTEXTMENU:
	{
	HWND hwndPopup;                                         // popuphandle
	hwndPopup = WinLoadMenu(hwndDlg, NULLHANDLE, POPUP1);   // load popup
	WinPopupMenu(hwndDlg,                                   // Start popup
			   hwndDlg,
			   hwndPopup,
			   SHORT1FROMMP(mp1),
			   SHORT2FROMMP(mp1),
			   0,
			   PU_HCONSTRAIN | PU_VCONSTRAIN | PU_MOUSEBUTTON1 | PU_KEYBOARD);
	}
return (MRFROMLONG(TRUE));

When one of the menu options is pressed a WM_COMMAND message will be sent to the owner. To prove this is happening, the sample of this month will contain a simple event handler for the WM_COMMAND message. Every item in the popup will create a beep of a certain frequency.

So, this creates a firm foundation for what's coming: we now know how to create a popup and how to handle it when it's invoked. But at this moment we are only able to start a popup from the main window. It would be nice if every control in an application could have it's own popup. For this we need another technique called subclassing. This even gives the possibility to create a small help message for every control in an application. We'll take a look at subclassing and adding pop-ups to controls next month. For now, I'm going to enjoy my summer holiday which started yesterday. 

If you want to play on your own, download the (http://www.os2ezine.com/v3n10/sample17.zip) source and compiled sample for this month's column (21K).

                         - * -

(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.

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

Sundial's Suite Overview

Sundial Systems' range of products isn't officially a 'suite' in the sense that you'd think of Lotus SmartSuite or StarOffice, the applications aren't packaged together and there's no common look and feel, but it does cover the standard bases expected from an office productivity software collection: Word processor, spreadsheet, database and PIM. Best of all, all the applications are long standing members of OS/2's software repartee and embody more of OS/2's best technologies than their competitors do. For those on a budget, they are all sold separately too -- with the other two suites you have to buy everything even if all you want is one program.

In talking with Sundial we learned that although they're not yet making any announcements to formally package their applications together in a suite, they are working towards uniting them with a common look and feel, but not so far as to make them all look exactly the same. To them, a spreadsheet is a spreadsheet and should not look like a word processor that looks like a database that looks like a PIM. That is, they'll still keep mostly unique interfaces adapted to their function, while Sundial works on making them appear to at least be from the same family. They do say that they will always be available separately, however, regardless of what else they do. 

They also had little to say on what they'd be doing to improve data sharing between applications, which at the moment is very poor. Sundial was intending to go with OpenDoc as the linking technology of choice, but the recent abandonment of that technology by IBM has more or less left the company in the lurch. 

Sundial is also working on putting more Internet features into their products, some of the first results we see are Relish Web - a program that publishes your Relish calendars in HTML form.

In this roundup of Sundial's "Suite" we have the following:

Word processor: Clearlook 1.72

Chris Wright, desktop publishing fanatic extraordinaire, has a look at what people call the fastest word processor available for OS/2.

Spreadsheet: Mesa 2 version 2.1.6

No, it's not called Mesa/2, or Mesa 2.0, it's called Mesa 2 for OS/2 version 2.1.6 and its not just another 1-2-3 clone. In fact, it's won our Readers Choice award for two years in a row. Michael Semon, arguably the Mesa 2 guru, reviews the state of the art today.

Sneak Peek: Mesa 2 version 2.2

Not yet released? Why should that matter? Michael Semon returns for a sneak peek at what's coming in the next version of the award winning spreadsheet, due to be released soon.

Database: DBExpert 2.0.5

Chris Wenham rolls up his sleeves and plunges in to the most mysterious part of any office suite: the database. DBExpert is not just a database manager, it's an application builder too. Here's where the power really starts to flow.

Personal Information Manager: Relish 2.2

Last December we reviewed Relish in our PIM roundup and it won Editor's Choice. Not having gone through any major upgrades since then, we refer you back to our (http://www.os2ezine.com/v2n12/relish.htm) original review for your convenience. See how Relish seamlessly integrates with the Workplace Shell as it manages your time and contacts.

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

Clearlook	- by Christopher B. Wright 

If you think of word processors for OS/2, chances are Clearlook won't be the first one that comes to mind. The latest version of Word Pro will probably be your first thought, followed by Star Division's StarWriter, then perhaps followed by the now-defunct DeScribe. Clearlook, if you think of it at all, is probably thought of in the past tense, rather than as a product that is still available and can be bought anywhere. 

The truth is, Clearlook is still an active product, and is still being developed by Sundial Systems. Version 2.0 of the program is due for release, and version 1.71 can be purchased from Sundial Systems or any of the online OS/2 stores.

Clearlook is a fine product, with some excellent, even unmatched features -- and some gaps in its features that can, at times, make it difficult to use. If you're considering buying a new word processor, consider both the strengths and the weaknesses of Clearlook carefully: if you can learn to live with and work around the weaknesses, it will be a powerful and efficient tool. 

The Good 

Clearlook was built with two qualities in mind: size and speed. Clearlook is probably the smallest word processor available on the market today -- it takes up less than 5 mb of your drive -- and definitely one of the fastest. Compare this with Word Pro, an application whose root directory alone takes up more than 32 Mb of space! Clearlook is definitely fast: the application opens faster than most folders will, and there is little if any delay when switching from one tool to another. Clearlook is so fast, in fact, that it will fool you into thinking it's a scaled-down, Microsoft-works like program. It isn't, though; it's a full-sized word processing program with features you wont find anywhere else. 

Unlike most word processors, Clearlook uses frames -- which it calls "cells" -- for every aspect of page layout and design. With Clearlook you don't bother defining the margins on your page: you simply resize a text cell until it covers the area you want it to cover, then start typing. Clearlook can support an insane number of cells at the same time (over 2,000), and they can be nested within each other. 

This way of working with text gives you a lot of control over your layout, an d for this reason, when Clearlook first arrived on the scene (before it became a Sundial Systems product) it was billed as "OS/2's first desktop publishing program." This wasn't exactly true, since Clearlook is lacking a lot of features a good Desktop Publishing program needs (such as kerning and leading tools, the ability to create color separations) but its cell-centered structure does give it more in common with PageMaker than Microsoft Word. 

Clearlook has most of the tools you'd expect a word processor to have: a spell checker, the ability to create styles, the ability to merge data into predefined fields ("mail merges"), as well as tools for creating indexes and tables of contents. Clearlook is a full-featured word processor that can handle just about anything you need a word processor to do. 

The Bad 

Unfortunately, there are some things it can't do, and these gaps in Clearlook's feature set can make it unsuitable for some kinds of work. 

First, Clearlook doesn't support too many alternate file types, so your cross-platform and cross-application support is limited. It definitely doesn't support the latest Word Pro, Microsoft Word and WordPerfect file types. Conversely, Clearlook's .ctx file format isn't recognized by many other word processors either. This means that if you're thinking of using Clearlook, you're either not concerned about migrating all your old documents into Clearlook format, or you're starting from scratch and have no old documents to migrate. Either way, if you choose Clearlook as your word processor, you're planning on sharing your files only with other Clearlook users. This is a big problem in a world where Microsoft Word and its formats rule supreme. Sundial Systems is planning to include support for more file types in Clearlook's next release, but for now it isn't there. 

Second, Clearlook's graphic support is very poor. Currently only bitmaps are supported -- and while having a graphic in bitmap format doesn't necessarily mean the quality of the graphic will be poor, a good bitmap has a much, much larger file size than a good GIF or JPEG, or a graphic in any of the vector file formats. The standard BMP format isn't used much these days, so inserting graphics into your document will probably necessitate converting them into bitmaps first. As a result, this will probably increase the size of your document significantly. 

The Somewhat Odd 

There are many aspects of Clearlook's user interface that aren't "bad features", but are strange when compared to other applications. Clearlook is definitely an unconventional application, and its user interface marches to the beat of a different drummer. 

The first major difference, aside from it's nonstandard install routine, is that the first thing you see after starting Clearlook is a folder called the "Clearlook Status Window." This folder contains, among other things, objects for accessing the Clearlook settings, modifying the thesaurus, the dictionary, and of course actually creating a document. In Clearlook, you don't open up the main program window then specify a new document -- rather you open up a document to start the program. In this fashion, Clearlook operates more like an OS/2 folder than your run-of-the-mill word processor would. 

Choosing the "create document" icon will open a list of templates for you choose from. Double-clicking on a template causes the Clearlook main window to appear and a new document to be created. 

Clearlook's main screen consists of a basic document window with a very simple toolbar across the top. Many of the toolbar's buttons don't act the way you'd expect. For example, when you use the zoom control, most word processors will give you some preset zoom levels and a dialog box if you wanted anything different. In Clearlook, however, the zoom control is a slider, so you can choose any option between 0-320%. The same with selecting font sizes: font size is selected via a slider, allowing you to choose any size between 0-86 points. 

I like both of these features; it gives you a lot more control than the standard "drop down lists" found in other programs. On the other hand, at times it feels awkward to use, and some may think that it's difficult to select exactly the tool you want to use. 

Another oddity is that the program always fills the entire space on your screen when it the main window opens. I prefer to be able to decide for myself how large the window will be, so I can use other applications in the same space with less difficulty. 

Final Thoughts

Clearlook is a great program, but it does have its drawbacks. It's limited document filters guarantees that people who don't use Clearlook won't be able to read your files unless you're willing to forego elaborate formats and use of graphics. It's limited graphics support means many of the images you'll want to include in your document will probably have to be converted before you use them, and as a result your documents may become much larger than you'd prefer. On the other hand, Clearlook is blazingly fast, very stable, and its cell-based structure allows you to very easily set up layouts that would take a long, long time with other applications. 

                         - * -

Clearlook
     by (http://www.sundialsystems.com/) Sundial Systems
     MSRP: US$89.00

(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.

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

DBExpert 2.0.5	- by Chris Wenham

There are databases, there are database managers, and there are database application builders. At least the first term, 'Databases', has been grossly misused and as a result small business users are often confused about what it is they need to buy. Start talking to a consultant about a "database" and he might think you want him to build you one, where you're actually looking for a program that will let you build one. You'll only notice the difference when the invoice arrives. DBExpert then is an application builder with a relational database manager built into it. The manager keeps track of the multiple tables, queries, forms and reports that make up a database, also protecting it from human error wherever possible. While the application builder part gives you a splendid array of tools for easily putting together a database that will manage your business, CD collection, catalog or whatever.

Installation and Documentation

DBExpert only comes on two floppies and takes up a tiny 4 megs of space on your hard drive once the install program has finished. It's RAM requirements are understandably slim too. What is truly great about the program in comparison to the other small-business database in the OS/2 arena -- Approach -- are the two user manuals that come with the program. 

The "Getting Started" booklet alone is as thick as the solitary user manual that came with Lotus Approach and is illustrated well with screenshots. Geared towards absolute beginners, it steps you through the construction of a sample database with multiple tables, queries, forms and reports. By the end, any user should be able to put together a complex database with table relationships, subforms and more. But this "absolute beginner" lean can be somewhat patronizing to experienced OS/2 users who are simply new to databases. The copious use of exclamation marks, talking-down to the reader and "COFFEE BREAK!" endings might look better in an Anthony Robbins manual, but not a user guide. 

The regular user manual adds another inch to this pile of documentation and is very thorough in its coverage. It cuts to the chase, leaving the 'beginner' attitude behind and talks to the mature user right away. This book not only covers the finer details of setting up a database but also comes with a full command reference to be used when writing macros. While using DBExpert, I found no need to hit the help files at all.

Creating Databases

DBExpert shares a close resemblance to Microsoft Access, almost to the point of being a clone. The main window is a notebook with tabs for tables, queries, forms, reports and macros in that order. Plus buttons for creating new elements, opening or designing existing ones. To this end the interface is consistent; you access your tables the same way you access your forms and reports.

With a database application builder the idea is to start by creating tables, the elements that actually store the data in its rawest form. From there on you create queries that define relationships between tables and narrow data down to select ranges, forms that give you a convenient front-end for putting information into the database, and reports that display the contents of the database in formatted and printed form. You can then make the database even more sophisticated and by writing macros that automate data entry, perform complex calculations and more. 

Table creation is easy, with space to define default values, validation rules, formatting of data and more. To assist in indexing and searching, it's possible to define fields of your table as keys, either primary, unique or duplicate. One complaint I have is the small number of data types supported by DBExpert. You get text, number, counter (which starts at 1 and automatically advances with each new record you add, which is handy as an ID field), date/time, memo and bitmap. The bitmap field is all but useless with its 32K limitation, plus I miss the presence of a Boolean type. 

Form and report creation were the parts that caused the most grief. The problem is that DBExpert isn't very good at snapping fields and labels and such to just where you want them. You'll inevitably spend ages getting all the boxes to line up flush with each other. But there is some relief if you just want to slap a form or report together quickly -- as DBExpert can assemble a default layout for you at the touch of a button.

Aside from that, DBExpert has excellent form creation tools. With support for multiline entry fields, push-buttons, toggle-buttons, checkboxes, radio buttons, combo boxes, bitmaps and graphs you have a lot of freedom to create some sophisticated stuff. The manual is also very good at showing you how to pull off some of the less obvious tricks -- like filling a drop-down list with items from another table or laying out a set of radio buttons. There's not much room for ornamentation though, a raised edge, sunken bevel and narrow palette of colors is about all you get to dress up the form with.

DBExpert is advanced enough to support subforms (a form within a form) that embeds data from another table (like the itemized entries of an order form) but only functions well in this regard when the subform is set to "spreadsheet" view. Set the subform to its regular freeform layout and you won't be able to flip through the subform's other records -- it'll be stuck at the first matching record with no way to advance to others. I was hoping for a scrolling "tractor feed" here.

Rexx and the Runtime Version

DBExpert is one of a breed of database application builders known as "non programming" databases. What this simply means is that programming is not the major emphasis of the package -- you don't need to be a programmer to create a powerful database. With DBExpert, click, drag and drop is about as much as you need to know. But even these "non programming" database builders will come with a basic scripting or macro language for power users. And DBExpert, being born and raised on OS/2, has Rexx as its native tongue. This Rexx interface, coupled with DBExperts's user interface, gives you a very powerful "visual" programming language right off the bat. 

In a matter of minutes you can create a short and sweet macro that performs a simple calculation and updates a table field with the new result. You give this macro a function name and suddenly you can use it everywhere. In a form's design view, highlight a button and scroll down to its "On Push" event in the properties box, enter the name of the function there and every time you click on that button in the form thereafter the macro is run. So for example, if the macro increases the salary field of your employees table by 10%, clicking on the button which you've labeled "Raise salary" will give the employee an instant raise.

Now combine this with DBExpert's Runtime version -- a small program that contains just the "engine" of the database builder but not the power to edit or create tables, forms or reports. Costing $29 per user, this runtime version bundled with a database you've already created with the full version can be cheaply distributed to all employees or clients in your business who need it. It effectively gives you the power to create highly sophisticated standalone applications and distribute them as you please.

Accessing Tables from Other Database Managers

DBExpert's native database format is dBase IV -- practically the standard in databases for over a decade now -- meaning that the tables it generates is easily shared with other programs. In addition, DBExpert also claims to support dBase III, Clipper, FoxPro, FoxBASE and delimited ASCII files too. 

DBExpert can also access and work with Oracle 7, DB2, DB2/MVS and SQL/DS tables too. The catch is that it won't work with them natively, you must have a copy of Oracle 7, DB2 or DDCS/2 already installed for DBExpert to connect to. Without such a setup, I was unable to test this feature.

Summary

My experience with DBExpert was considerably more favorable than with Lotus Approach, the key advantages being its full Rexx macro interface and its thicker printed manuals. Like Approach, DBExpert is very graphical and gives you the power to "paint" forms and reports as well as link fields together in a query through drag-n-drop.

The program doesn't pretend to have any modern gadgets such as Internet/Web report generation or file transfers, but it is refreshingly clean and no-nonsense. It's easy to get started with right away, and after only an afternoon of fiddling around you can have a complete catalog management, customer tracking and order processing system up and running -- just waiting for data to be poured in. High marks for this well designed application.

                         - * -

DBExpert 2.0.5
     by (http://www.sundialsystems.com/) Sundial Systems
     MSRP: US$119.00

(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.

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

Mesa 2 2.1.6	- by Michael Semon

I remember looking through the 1997 OS/2 e-Zine! Readers' Choice Awards. Despite all the awards that Lotus SmartSuite won, Mesa 2 still won the (http://www.os2ezine.com/v3n01/business.htm) Spreadsheet category. I had to ask myself, "Why?" After all, SmartSuite seems to have integration, loads of features, and IBM's cash and power behind it. This review is my attempt to answer this question. 

Getting Started

You can get Mesa 2 from (http://www.sundialsystems.com/) Sundial Systems Corporation. Sundial will send you Mesa 2 and the 296-page User's Guide. Mesa 2 is also available from OS/2 software retailers. If you need a demo of the program itself, you can download it from the Internet (from Sundial or on various FTP sites). 

No matter how you get Mesa 2, it comes as a demo. If you have a license number, you have full access to Mesa 2's features. Otherwise, it runs in Demo Mode, giving you full access to a workbook with a maximum of 32 rows, 32 columns, and 8 layers. No features are disabled. 

If you buy Mesa 2 from Sundial or other software retailers, it will come on two floppy disks. Fully installed, it takes 4.3 MB of disk space. The install process modifies 3 or 4 entries in CONFIG.SYS and adds a key to OS2.INI. 

Mesa 2 Basic Concepts

Mesa 2 is a 32-bit spreadsheet for OS/2 2.11 and higher. Version 2.1.6 was released in Autumn 1996. It requires 8 MB of RAM, and I've used it comfortably in 16 MB of RAM with Warp 4 installed. It behaves well at all Warp 4 FixPak levels. This is partly due to conservative programming and partly because it's all native OS/2 code (that is, it's not Open32). 

Mesa 2 aspires to the OS/2 ideal of tasks. Workbooks run in separate threads, and print jobs can be set to execute in background threads. It can take a heavy load without losing touch with OS/2. It's the kind of program where I can always use Ctrl-Esc to bring the Window List to the foreground. If I get into a really big processing and virtual memory jam I can use the Window List to close Mesa 2. I can't recall it forcing me to reboot OS/2. 

My best description for Mesa 2 is "it's a compatibility spreadsheet that isn't a compatibility spreadsheet." It can import and export 1-2-3 wk1, wk3, wk4, and wks files. It can import and export xls files from Excel 3 and 4. And it can read Quattro Pro wb1 files. It has no Alternative Formula Entry feature that translates foreign formulas into native syntax, instead it has @ functions and non-@ functions, preserving 1-2-3 and Excel syntax in many (if not all) cases. If you're used to using 1-2-3 or Excel, then you don't have to change your formula entry style. 

But Mesa 2 itself shows a radically minimal design concept. There are no maps. There are no native ODBC drivers. There are no fancy graphics tools. It doesn't get in your way with 50 modal alert boxes in an effort to "help" the user, but it does provide excellent documentation in classic INF style. It's a user-friendly spreadsheet with REXX extensions, a real-time feed table, a minimal set of graphics tools, and a reasonable set of graph tools. It works well with the OS/2 style of simple, powerful, predictable tools in a GUI. 

OS/2 Integration

Mesa 2 has its own interface that does its best to follow OS/2 conventions. Drag and drop is done with the right mouse button pressed. Selections are made with the left mouse button pressed. You can change colors and fonts for nearly everything on the screen by using the OS/2 color and font palettes. Most of your changes will hold, except for the dialog boxes and menus, which follow the WPS desktop color scheme. 

The biggest part of this interface is the Selection Manager. There are 7 major tabs and 7 minor tabs, and each major tab covers a specific task. However, I've done well with just the Range, Find, and Sort tabs for day-to-day work. The rest of them were learned on an as-needed basis. 

Selection Manager works a lot like the OS/2 properties notebooks. The changes are seen as they are made. The difference is that If I don't like the changes I've made in Selection Manager, I have to click on the worksheet and use the worksheet's Undo. There's no need to close the Selection Manager while working because it isn't modal. This makes it a cut above the selection panels in most spreadsheets. 

If you don't like to work this way, Mesa 2 has a slew of options on its Range and Graph menus. If you right-click over a cell, the pop-up menu you'll get is a rough duplicate of the Range menu. Depending on where I right-click on the status bar (at the bottom of the window), I'll get a pop-up menu for the status bar itself, recalculation, font settings, or alignment settings. 

Mesa 2 follows the OS/2 example of keyboard shortcuts. There is a shortcut for most functions. Also, the shortcuts weren't compromised or hidden in the interest of safety. If Mesa 2 has a keyboard shortcut for a menu command, then the shortcut is listed on the menu. I don't have to search the help system to find the shortcut for Clear Strings. If I did want to do that, both the Mesa 2 book and the online help have charts of shortcuts. 

Fun with Numbers

Mesa 2 has roughly 178 @ functions, 184 non-@ functions, and 19 operators. It covers most of the essential functions. There are functions you might know and love, such as 'MOD', 'ROUNDUP', 'VLOOKUP', 'NPER', 'OR', 'REPLACE', 'WEEKDAY', and 'STDDEV', with @ equivalents. However, Mesa 2 doesn't include functions like 'COMBIN', 'EOMONTH', 'ROMAN', 'HEX2DEC', or bit-manipulation functions. 

The strongest formula concepts in Mesa 2 are Formula Inheritance and SmartFill. It's like the special fill features in other spreadsheets, but it will keep track of the formulas for you. If you don't need filled cells to adapt to changes, regular fill features are available. 

Logical functions are a special strong point for Mesa 2, having 'NOT', 'OR', and 'AND' implemented as functions as well as operators. The operators can be used like '=A1&&B1' or '=A1#AND#B1'. There's also an extra operator, '#XOR#', that I really appreciated when I took Discrete Structures in college. In addition, Mesa 2 seems to support the entire suite of 'IS' functions, such as 'ISTEXT', 'ISFORMULA', and 'ISERROR'. 

Mesa 2's functions are strong on math, trigonometry, and lookup operations. There seem to be a lot of financial functions, too. There aren't many matrix functions, and the number of time/date functions leave me a little flat. The text functions are quite acceptable, though. 

Where Mesa 2's slew of functions fail to please me, there's always MScript and REXX. 

REXX Integration

Mesa 2 has MScript, which is roughly 42 REXX functions that help the user control Mesa 2. Most of these functions are meant to work with or without making selections. A series like... 

SEL("C4")          /* select cell C4 */

PUTC("Hello!")     /* place "Hello!" in the current cell */

...can be done as... 

PUTC("Hello!", "C4")

MScript is not a dialect of REXX. Instead, it's an addition to the REXX that comes with OS/2. Although some functions (like SAY and PULL) are suppressed, all of the non-VIO tricks are there. The "outside REXX" functions are there, too. For instance, I can use RexxUtil from within Mesa 2 to help create shadows on my desktop: 

A general rule of thumb is that if a script changes the contents of a cell, then your Undo will be reset. I like to get my data in working order, save, then use scripts for any of REXX's benefits (built-in type-conversion functions, easy text handling, etc.). 

If you use the scripting features, the scripts will be stored on individual pages after the last layer. The script pages are like pages in a text editor and not composed in spreadsheet cells. If you wish to record a script -- and even if you don't wish to record a script -- spreadsheet actions are automatically recorded in the Script History. 

DDE Links and the Feed Table

Mesa 2 has two ways to link with the outside world in real time. It can link with DDE links, and it can link to its own feed table. 

DDE links can be used to communicate with other DDE-enabled applications. Unfortunately, none of the other Sundial applications support DDE links at this time. However, DDE is also the method Mesa 2 uses to communicate with separate workbooks, so there are still good opportunities to use this feature. It works, but the interface for maintaining links is a bit stiff with regard to targets of the DDE links. Using a separate layer for pasting links goes a long way. I have a like/dislike relationship with this feature. You may feel differently about it. 

The feed table is something of a vague concept. It's a table in which to place numbers in RAM. A Mesa 2 worksheet can display numbers from the feed table with the FEED function. However, the table still works when Mesa 2 isn't open. Mesa 2 comes with sample programs (with source code) for showing how the outside world can interact with the feed table. 

Other Goodies

Mesa 2 has simple graphics tools. There are tools for drawing straight lines, rectangles, text boxes, and ellipses. The graphics can be manipulated by drag and drop, but there's also a mechanism in the Selection Manager for pixel-by-pixel positioning. Graphics can't be grouped, and that's good to know before starting a graphics-heavy spreadsheet. They can be used to launch scripts, though. 

On the bitmap front, bitmaps can be imported into Mesa 2 by drag and drop or through the Import Graphic dialog. 

Mesa 2 has 15 graph variations. There are the following styles: bar, column, area, pie, pyramid, scatter, line, high/low, and high/low/close. Some of them have 3-D variations. Pyramid comes only as a 3-D graph, and Pie comes only as a 2-D graph. The appearance can be controlled through the Selection Manager (there's one major tab with four minor tabs) and through the OS/2 palettes. There's a lot of flexibility and too many controls for me to describe here. There are titles to place, styles to set, axis labels to rotate, and axis limits to set, among other things. The default graphs are reasonable, so it's not absolutely necessary to tinker with a bunch of controls to get a nice-looking graph. 

There are lots of other little things that may be of use to you. Among these are: print preview, page headers, page footers, page side labels, simple data validation by cell, protection, hidden rows/columns, password protection on files, a Revert to Saved feature to quickly get out of jams, date handling from 1/1/1000 to 12/31/3199, range labels (with optional AutoGrow), sorting by rows, sorting by columns, an elaborate Find & Replace feature, vertical and horizontal alignment, and text wrap. 

There are four calculation modes: By row, By column, Natural (default), and Natural + circular reference. There is also an Iteration setting for the calculations. 

The specs for workbooks are a maximum of 32768 rows, 18278 columns, and 702 layers. The default is 32x32x1, but that isn't a hard-set limit. If you need to add just a row at a time, you can arrow-key-down past the last row to add rows. If you need to get to a specific place, press Ctrl-g to get the Goto panel, then enter the address. Mesa 2 will "create" the address if necessary. Otherwise, the page settings are on the Page tab of Selection Manager. 

When Things Go Wrong

There are times when Mesa 2 can crash. It works along the lines of most OS/2 programs: When there are crashes, it's easy to find the cause. In the past year in a half, I've stumbled across three "please use caution" issues. 

Mesa 2 didn't like my Lotus 1-2-3r5 file with maps in it. The file filters work well for data, supported formulas, and cell formatting. However, I exercise caution when I think the source workbook exceeds the capability of Mesa 2's import filters. 

If I use more than 100 operators in a base-level formula -- such as "=1+2+3+...+100+101" -- Mesa 2 will crash. Mesa 2 doesn't do things like place limits on operators or nested IF formulas, so it's good to save any open files before pushing Mesa 2's formula-entry limits. Judicious use of parentheses will help extend the limits a bit. 

The third issue has to do with the MScript functions. IBM's REXX functions allow for empty middle arguments, such as the one in STRIP('12.7000',,0). MScript functions don't always provide for them, especially when I'm accidentally omitting required arguments. Otherwise, the functions work very well. 

Other than that, stability is excellent (one crash every few months) for work. Stability is good when I want to push it beyond its design limitations. My abuse of OS/2's configuration -- including an unofficial FixPak or two -- hasn't bothered it. 

Conclusions

My experience has been that Mesa 2 works best as Mesa 2. It tries to behave like a spreadsheet program and behave like OS/2, so there a very subtle learning curve for experienced spreadsheet users. Novice spreadsheet users probably won't notice the learning curve. Mesa 2 does a good job of not being user-hostile. 

To answer my original "why" question, I think Mesa 2 won a Readers' Choice award by being flexible for various tasks, especially OS/2 tasks that aren't covered by other OS/2 numerical software. Mesa 2 doesn't necessarily have more features or better support than the rest of Sundial's products, so the flexibility issue stays in my mind. 


                         - * -

Mesa 2 2.1.6
     by (http://www.sundialsystems.com/) Sundial Systems Corporation
     download the demo from (ftp://ftp.sundialsystems.com/demos/mwm216.zip) Sundial Systems (ZIP, 2.3 MB)
     MSRP: US$159.00

(mlsemon@gate.net) Michael Semon lives in Ft. Pierce, Florida, and is the author of the (http://www.gate.net/~mlsemon/Mesa2/index.html) Simple Guide to Mesa 2 web page.

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

Mesa 2 2.2 PreRelease 6	- by Michael Semon

Mesa 2 2.1.6 is a nice spreadsheet program. It crunches lots of numbers. It's beautiful and classy. It's friendly for casual users and reasonable for power users. 

Sundial Systems Corporation must have decided to modify the character of Mesa 2 when it set out to create the next version of Mesa 2, version 2.2. It's still beautiful, but the classy part has been partially replaced with elegance. The rest of it was translated into raw power. This is a sneak preview of what's coming in Mesa 2.
 
A New Level of Flexibility

A lot of improvements have been made to the Mesa 2 interface. There is a new look that's clean and free of frills. Almost every part of the interface was designed with flexibility in mind. 

New Toolbars

The toolbars are new. I miss the rounded buttons from Mesa 2 2.1.6, but then again, I couldn't drag and drop the buttons to different places on the toolbars. Toolbar operations work by OS/2 conventions, and there's no need to open a Customize panel to move buttons. 

The Setup Toolbar dialog allows me to assign buttons to commands or macros, then drag them to a toolbar. If I wish, I can use the bitmap editor of my choice to make new buttons. If I want to use large bitmaps for buttons, the toolbar will adapt to the new bitmap's size. 

New Keyboard Handling and Menus

There is a new Shortcuts tab in the Preferences panel. The new keyboard handling is great and is geared toward freedom. You can assign any listed Mesa 2 command to a keyboard shortcut. I can assign Ctrl-Alt-Shift-Esc to something, or I can assign the 1 key to it. As long is it isn't already used by OS/2 (such as Alt-F4 or Ctrl-Alt-Delete), it will work. The only low point is that I can't seem to assign a shortcut to a script. 

Mesa 2 comes with a basic menu editor. The menus work by the same rules as keyboard shortcuts. New menus, menu items, and separators can be added to Mesa 2. The menu editor can used on all of the menus, with the exception of the right-click menu for the status bar. This means you can edit the pop-up menus as well as the main menu. 

These custom settings are meant to be stored for future use. Toolbars, menus, and shortcuts can be exported to files and loaded again. I can save my toolbars, etc., and use them on another person's installation of Mesa 2. 

AutoEverything and SmartEverything

Mesa 2 is full of nice, simple, low-disk-space features. Here's the list of many of the new Auto- and Smart-Features: 

o  AutoSum-like features: Mesa 2 2.1.6 had AutoSum. The items from 2.1.6's 'Range=>Math' menu earned their own buttons and became Auto Variance, Auto Sum of Squares, Auto Standard Deviation, etc.

o  AutoFormat: It can format a range to one of a few predefined styles. If you own Excel, Quattro Pro or 1-2-3 then you've seen something like it. 

o  AutoExpand: Mesa 2 can suggest ways to complete your words by searching the cells around the current cell. This can be enabled or disabled in the Options page of Preferences.

o  SmartFreeze: This is a freeze rows/columns feature that should have been in Mesa 2 all along. I'm happy its here, but I feel like a jerk for wanting it, then not really using it once I got it. 

o  SmartFormula: If you have numbers in B2:D10 and type "Total" in A11, Mesa 2 can put each column's sum in B11, C11, and D11. Mesa 2 comes with a few SmartFormulas like Average, but you can define your own SmartFormulas. 

o  SMARTRANGE function: This is a new function that can be used with SmartFormulas, but it can be used by itself. It means "give me just the range Mesa 2 would choose if I pressed the AutoSum button." 

o  SmartFill tab: This is a new page in Preferences. It's a place to change the sequence of things to be filled. If you want a series like dog, cat, bird, frog; it can be defined here. 

o  SmartCapitalization: It's used to capitalize a SmartFilled range if necessary. It can be disabled on the Modify Series panel, which is accessible from the SmartFill settings.

There is a new status bar feature that shows, for instance, either the sum of the selection or the AutoSum for the current cell. It goes beyond the average status bar formula feature. In addition to Sum, Average, Minimum, and Maximum, custom formulas can be used. Something complex like '=VAR(SMARTRANGE("c"))' would be a good custom formula. I chose '="Howdy!"' for my Mesa 2 screen shot because, well, I can do it. 

A New Level of Honesty

Mesa 2's formula entry tolerance has been expanded. The maximum formula length is now near 65536 bytes (65,530 works, 65,540 doesn't work). That's 64 times the Excel formula entry limit of 1024 bytes. It exposes a the ultimate test of the new Mesa 2: formula entry. The limit on base-level operators has been increased from 100 to 9,300. 'IF' functions can be nested 511 levels deep, making room for many logical decisions. 

The text limits are equally large. In my tests with ridiculously long text strings, I managed to break Excel's word wrap free (Excel 97 doesn't have a 1,024-character limit on text) after a few lines. Mesa 2 kept going, giving a 20-second pause on my Pentium 100 test machine. When it was done, the text was wrapped, perfectly. 

A custom cell format language has been introduced to Mesa 2. It's a lot like the Excel format language. There are some differences, though. It doesn't support some of the Excel 97 token, such as the * token that's useful in making accounting number formats. However, it does allow for more than just a handful of entries. This freedom can be of good use for lists, such as days of the week:

[= 1][RED]"Monday";[= 2]"Tuesday";[= 3]"Wednesday";

[= 4]"Thursday";[= 5][MAGENTA]"Friday";[= 6]"Saturday";

[= 7]"Sunday";[NUMBER]"Not a weekday";[ERROR][RED];GENERAL

With all of these things, if I make formulas and text extremely long, Mesa 2 will take a while to crunch them. However, it it's within Mesa 2's generous limits, the operations will finish. The answer will be correct, too. I like that spirit of honesty and determination. 

New Features in MScript and Scripting

Mesa 2's scripting capabilities have been enhanced. There's a REXX Console now, so Mesa 2 is capable of properly executing SAY and PULL instructions. This is great when I want to output a debug variable while testing a script. It reports error messages, too. 

The 'RUNSCRIPT' spreadsheet function and the 'SCRIPTQUEUE' MScript function have been expanded to accept function arguments. There's an added argument to determine whether the a queued script runs in line or in its own process. This can be very useful if you store scripts in the global script file, globals.m2. 

There are about 100 MScript functions in the new Mesa 2. New functions are included to help automate complex actions like changing graphs, exporting files, and printing files. Many of the new functions are for simple queries and changes. 

The lesser-used Mesa 2 actions were considered when making the new MScript functions. A new 'POSTMESACOMMAND' allows most things REXX (including the macro language in DBExpert) to send commands to Mesa 2. Functions like 'CLOSECONSOLE' and 'CLEARCONSOLE' help control the REXX Console and put it to good use. There are cute feedback functions like 'CYCLECALCINDICATOR', which cycles the abacus in the status bar. 

The bottom line is that if you liked the 2.1.6 MScript functions but wish there one extra function to do task X, then 2.2 probably has that extra function. I like the REXX Console functions because they appeal to the command-line junkie in me. 

New Palettes and OS/2 Integration

Sundial added four new OS/2 palettes for changing the appearance of items by drag and drop. The Line Width Palette, Line Style Palette, and Pattern Palette apply to cells and graphs. The Marker Palette applies to graphs. The Line Width Palette has a line width editor. 

There are new drag-and-drop tricks. Worksheet layers can be dragged directly to a print object to be printed. Graphics can be dragged to most places in a workbook and can be used to place background bitmap in the application window. Graphics can be used as pictograms in the bars of bar graphs.

File Enhancements

Mesa 2 has a new file format. Previous versions of Mesa 2 can't read it, but there are import and export filters for the Mesa 2.1.x file format. 

There's a new Template file format. Mesa 2 comes with several templates, presumably to demonstrate the template feature. I never use the built-in anything samples that come with a program, so I appreciate the conservative use of disk space. Otherwise, I would have just not installed the samples and missed this feature altogether. 

New import and export filters have been created to handle the Excel 97 file format. They work very well, grabbing a surprising amount of data and cell formatting. The Excel filters are much better than the 1-2-3 filters in Mesa 2 2.1.6. There are occasional aesthetic glitches in the export filter, but they're easily corrected after opening the file in Excel. Having moved from a job using 1-2-3 to a job using Excel 97, I appreciate the new filter. 

An HTML export filter has been included, and it works. The text import/export has been made elaborate but still convenient. 

The Files Tab

Preferences has a special tab that takes care of default directories. A separate directory can be chosen for regular worksheets, autosaved files, template files, and backup files. Because Mesa 2 can be started like "MESA2.EXE /INI:iniName", this makes it easy to separate two users' settings on the same computer. 

This page also shows off several new features. Mesa 2 has new codepage translation, and it has settings to enable or disable it. There's also two different levels of file compression for worksheets. The maximum file compression is so good that on many files, using "zip -9" on a compressed workbook doesn't improve the file size by more than one or two percent. 

Other Goodies

I still haven't described most of the new features in the new Mesa 2. There are many small optimizations throughout Mesa 2, especially the display refresh during recalculations. A few functions have been added, such as 'COUNTIF' and 'BESSELJ' kind of functions. There is now a maximum of 99,999 rows per layer instead of 32,768 rows. The program stability is still excellent for work, but it's now equally stable when brute force is being applied to it. A discussion of the little things could take another 10 pages of space, so I'll skip it. 

Conclusion

As you can see, there are a lot of new features in Mesa 2. Some features were probably made because they sounded good and could help sell the product. Most features, though, were made for power freaks like me, who demand control over most parts of a program and don't want to pay for it in disk space. To that end, Mesa 2 still installs from two floppy disks. It occupies 4.7 MB of space after installation (Mesa 2 2.1.6 occupied 4.3 MB). It's awesome to have a huge number of feature enhancements and pay a mere 400 kB for it. I wonder how Sundial did it. 

                         - * -

Mesa 2 2.2 PreRelease 6
     by (http://www.sundialsystems.com/) Sundial Systems Corporation
     MSRP: Not yet released

(mlsemon@gate.net) Michael Semon lives in Ft. Pierce, Florida, and is the author of the (http://www.gate.net/~mlsemon/Mesa2/index.html) Simple Guide to Mesa 2 web page.

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

June 28, 1998 Reader Survey Results

A short time ago IBM released a developers' toolkit to facilitate the creation of video card drivers for OS/2 that would take advantage of OpenGL video acceleration.  What this means is that if video card manufacturers put the effort into updating their video drivers, OS/2 users can have hardware support for 3D accelerated graphics to rival that of Windows users.  However, even if such drivers are developed, software programs (be they business, game or other applications) would have to be written to take advantage of hardware OpenGL features.  This chicken and egg problem, plus the general estimate of the size of the OS/2 market is keeping most video card manufacturers from announcing plans to create drivers.

We wondered how many people really care about 3D acceleration.  After all, IBM tells us that OS/2 is a 'corporate' operating system and as such it may not need fancy graphics.  To find out, last time we asked for your opinions about "OpenGL Hardware Support".

Answers to our survey were accepted from June 28th until July 14th.  We had a total of 919 replies to our questionnaire with 42 "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 877 valid replies.  The results were as follows:

Is hardware OpenGL video acceleration important?

OpenGL video acceleration is considered important by our readers.  Not only did the majority of readers (52.8%) tell us it was very important, another third of readers (31.1%) felt it was somewhat important for a total of 83.9% of OS/2ers looking for OpenGL support.

Do you want hardware OpenGL support for games, business or other use?

Perhaps surprisingly, OS/2 users are searching for this enhanced graphics ability for multiple purposes.  While we might have expected the largest group to be asking for game support, the majority (68.1%) told us they wanted it for both games and business applications.

This probably shows that IBM is correct in assuming that business users realize Warp is the best operating system available (and not just big business users) but it also shows what many have maintained for some time: the computer market is homogenous.  You can't separate one segment of the market from the other.  We all want to use our machines in many ways.

Would you buy a new video adapter to get hardware OpenGL support?

Of course the real issue is whether we will put our money where our mouths are.  If we won't pay for OpenGL support, we can be certain that no company will ever develop it.  Luckily, we say we will pay for it.  More than three quarters of our readers told us they would either definitely or probably purchase a new video adapter to get hardware OpenGL support.  Now we just need a suitable company to step up and do the job.  Is anyone listening... ?

                         - * -

That's it for this issue.  Don't forget to fill out this issue's questionnaire and check back on August 1st for complete results.



                         Complete June 28, 1998 Survey Results

Is hardware OpenGL video acceleration important?

Category							Count		Percentage
Very important					463		52.8%
Somewhat important				273		31.1%
Somewhat unimportant				26		3.0%
Very unimportant					10		1.1%
I am indifferent					47		5.4%
I am not sure						43		4.9%
I do not understand the question	15		1.7%
TOTAL							877		100.0%


Do you want hardware OpenGL support for games, business or other use?

Category								Count		Percentage
I don't want/am not sure I want it		63		7.2%
I want it only for games				82		9.4%
I want it only for business			43		4.9%
I want it for both games and business	597		68.1%
I want it only for other reasons		22		2.5%
I am not sure							57		6.5%
I do not understand the question		13		1.5%
TOTAL								877		100.1%


Would you buy a new video adapter to get hardware OpenGL support?

Category							Count		Percentage
Definitely						320		36.5%
Probably							334		38.1%
Probably not						116		13.2%
Definitely not					35		4.0%
I am not sure						64		7.3%
I do not understand the question	8		0.9%
TOTAL							877		100.0%

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July 16/98 Reader Survey

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

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

Just fill in the form at http://www.os2ezine.com/v3n10/survey2.htm and check our next issue to find out how "normal" you really are!

                    This issue's topic: RealAudio Support for OS/2

                         - * -

Do you have an idea that you think would make a (feedback@os2ezine.com) good survey question?

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

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 July 29, 1998.

Complete results of this survey will be printed in our next issue (August 1, 1998).

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

MP3 in OS/2	- by Samuel Audet

MP3s -- What They Are And How They Work

MP3 is the filename extension that people started to use for MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 Layer III files. They are audio files, very similar in some ways to what WAVs are. However, they are up to 11 times smaller than regular PCM data found on music CDs while still sounding almost exactly the same as the original to the human ear. With this ratio you can store a 74 minute CD in 68 megs of space. Compare that to the 740 megs that WAV would need!

You might also have heard of such things as MPEG-2 AAC, VQF and RealAudio. These are all based on similar psychoacoustic models that scientists have been studying since the beginning of the century. But unlike MP3, these newer coding schemes can achieve up to 15:1 compression without perceptual loss.

What all these formats do to compress the data so small is to switch the time domain PCM file into small pieces of frequency domain, filtering out anything our ears can't hear and removing all redundant data the decoder can duplicate before passing it on to a storage or transfer device.

Why MP3?

So why use MP3 you ask? MPEG-2 AAC isn't available to the public yet and the only proof we have it even exists is (http://www.a2bmusic.com/) AT&T's a2b music site where they sell music encoded in a format that AAC will resemble. The final AAC specifications are not available yet as the MPEG committee, of which AT&T is a member, is still working on them. (http://www.vqf.com/) VQF is an expensive commercial algorithm for which players and encoders exist. But, you guessed it, they are not available for OS/2. However, the situation for VQF players is not as bad as (http://www.realaudio.com/) RealAudio, for which no source code or specifications are available at all.

What you can do in OS/2 with MP3s

The first thing you can do with MP3s is to store music on your hard disk instead of music CDs or on evil audio cassettes that degrade with time and get tangled up in your tape deck. Of course, you can also use it to store even more music on a CD using a data track -- imagine 11 hours of music on one CD! However, with MP3s on a random access device like your hard drive, you can delete them, add new ones, decode them to edit the resulting WAV, or do whatever you want with them very easily. One of those new 11 gig hard drives can hold 200 hours of CD quality music in MP3 format. With MP3s you can also distribute your own home made music on the 'net. Such sites that deal with amateur music encoded this way can already be found on the web and it appears that much more of this sort of distribution is coming in the near future.

The second use the MP3 format can be put to is as an alternative to RealAudio, since MP3s can be "streamed" just as RA files can be. However, there are two problems that show on the horizon. First, no "MP3 Server" software exists, so we use regular HTTP instead. But HTTP uses TCP, and not UDP like RealAudio servers do, which means a slower transfer because TCP can not 'forget' lost data during network problems in order to catch up with playback. The second problem is that MP3 doesn't sound as good as RealAudio encoded at the same bitrate. This is not a problem for normal speech, but for real-time music it means that a 48kb/s MP3 will sound like a 32kb/s RealAudio file -- leaving us poor 33.6k modem users in the dark.

How can we do this in OS/2?

There are several utilities that already exist for OS/2 to either Encode, Decode and Play MP3s (partly thanks to me <g>). Of course, I will recommend PM123 for playback, (http://www.os2ss.com/archives/hobbes/os2/apps/mmedia/sound/players/mpg123v3.zip) mpg123/2 (ZIP, 103k) for decoding and CD2MP3 PM for encoding. But there are also a couple of other good players, which include (http://www.os2ss.com/archives/hobbes/os2/apps/mmedia/sound/players/wamp_b3c.zip) WarpAmp (ZIP, 257k), (http://www.os2ss.com/archives/hobbes/os2/apps/mmedia/sound/players/zv22.zip) Z (ZIP, 114k), and at least one other nice encoding interface: (http://www.os2ss.com/archives/hobbes/os2/apps/mmedia/sound/convert/mp3pm055.zip) MP3 PM (ZIP, 252k).  Have a look at the OS/2 Supersite in the (http://www.os2ss.com/archives/hobbes/os2/apps/mmedia/sound/) multimedia sound directory (and subdirectories) to see what's available.  New apps are being released all the time so this is one area where OS/2 does not lack!

To make some MP3s of your own you can use the following (or one of the others you found above):

o  (http://www.cam.org/~guardia/archives/cd2mp3pm_091.zip) CD2MP3 PM (ZIP, 76k)

o  (ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/sac/sound/l3v272d1.zip) L3Enc 2.x or (http://www.kiss.uni-lj.si/~k4fe0470/tompg.zip) ToMPG (a Windows program that needs to be converted with Win32-OS/2, it will not run in a regular WinOS/2 session)

o  (http://www.teamos2.sci.fi/pm123/pm123101.zip) PM123 (ZIP, 697k)

Now take your microphone out of the dusty closet. After the Internet phone and VoiceType fiasco, it's finally time to use it again. On your OS/2 Desktop make a new WAV file by using the Digital Audio program object in your Multimedia folder or the WAVAudio.WAV template in your template folder. Open it and choose a sample rate of 11kHz, mono and 16 bit. Eight bit PCM streams are not really used any more and MP3 encoders will not accept them. Choose the microphone as input and start talking into it. When you're finished, close the recording session and start CD2MP3 PM.

The easiest way to try out L3Enc or ToMPG is to unzip one of them into a single directory and launch it from there. Add or Drag your newly created WAV into the WAV list and choose 16kb/s as a bitrate (almost good enough for 14.4k modems, but not quite), since voice can get away with such low bitrates unharmed. Start the conversion process and once finished you can try out the newly created MP3 in PM123 (or whatever MP3 player you have).

While this is nice, nicer still is putting it on your web page. This is how:

Create a file with .M3U extension containing the following text:

  http://www.yourdomain.com/yourdirectory/yourmp3.mp3

(substitute your own web site domain, directory and filename where appropriate)

Upload both files to your web site and open PM123.

In PM123, use "Open URL", and type in http://www.yourdomain.com/yourdirectory/yourmp3.mp3. Isn't that cool? Free audio streaming!

The M3U file can also be used by Netscape. If you setup PM123 in Netscape to intercept M3U URLs, PM123 will read the URL found in the file and play it. (The same mechanism is used to play .RAM and .RA files for RealAudio.)

Note, however, that ToMPG does not downsample properly. If you want to encode a high quality WAV into a low quality MP3, be sure to downsample it with another professional tool, such as (http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/apps/mmedia/sound/convert/sox1212.zip) Sox or use L3Enc instead. L3Enc is 9 times slower in encoding than ToMPG, but gives better quality overall.

The same can be done for radio or home made music. Use an appropriate cable to connect your radio to your sound card's "line in" and record some data at 44.1kHz, stereo, 16 bit and encode it, but this time at 128kb/s. Much better than audio cassettes, don't you think? Of course, if your sound card picks up noise from your hard disk, that's bad. Since most OS/2 sound editors record to memory, you might want something that can easily record to the HD. I have modified the (http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/apps/mmedia/sound/editors/wavhdrec.zip) applets that come with GUS PnP drivers and they can now record WAV files directly to the hard drive.

To create MP3s from a music CD, you can use a CD Grabber which can usually copy CD tracks to WAV files on your hard disk (or possibly save them directly as MP3 files without first saving as WAV files). CD2MP3 PM can make the process automated if you can find a suitable grabber that can run in non-interactive mode. Two of them, (http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/apps/mmedia/sound/editors/leech120.zip) Leech and (http://www.algonet.se/~mikkje/files/alf099b.zip) Alfons should work for most people. Once one of these can be found by CD2MP3 PM, just specify the tracks that you want to grab, use your favorite encoder at a bitrate of at least 128kb/s and watch the process go. It can encode in the background, so you're free to do other work on your computer as it does this.

Standard Disclaimer and Legal Notice

As with all copyrighted material, commercially distributed music is protected by the laws of the United States and most other countries. Copying the music tracks from a CD may be illegal depending on the conditions described on the album's liner. While it may be safe to make copies of copyrighted music to MP3 files for your own personal use, the unauthorized distribution of that music in MP3 form is almost definitely illegal and can result in stiff penalties or even jail time. While there is nothing illegal about the MP3 encoding format (just as there is nothing illegal about owning blank audio tapes), what you do with it can by subject to law. OS/2 e-Zine! does not endorse or condone the activity of making illegal copies of music and distributing them over the Internet or any other medium. In other words: it's probably not a good idea to encode all your Bob Dylan albums and upload them to your web site.

More information on OS/2 software for MP3 can be found at:

o  (http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~malstrom/mp3.html) MP3 Software on OS/2 Warp
o  (http://www.fis.cinvestav.mx/~titov/os2soft/mp3/) MP3 Solutions for OS/2 Warp

More information on MP3 can be found at

o  (http://www.mpeg.org/~tristan/MPEG/mp3.html) MPEG .Org's MPEG Audio Layer III page

                         - * -

(http://www.cam.org/~guardia/) Samuel Audet is an OS/2 fan learning about programming in C/C++/Java, mathematics and physics, and author of such programs as Hot Scroll and PM123. He will be studying Computer Engineering for the next few years at (http://www.polymtl.ca/) Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal.

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

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 vendor(s):

o  Mensys

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.

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

June's Top Selling Apps from Mensys

This		Last
Month	Month		Product						Developer

1		1		OS/2 Fixpack CD					Mensys
2		--		Hobbes CD						Walnut Creek
3		--		BackAgain/2 Personal Edition		CDS
4		9		Impos 2.1 Upgrade					Compart
5		--		System Commander					V Communications
6		--		The Secure Workplace for OS/2		Syntegration
7		8		BackMaster						MSR Development
8		--		Lotus Smartsuite for OS/2 Upgrade	Lotus
9		--		BMT Micro CD						BMT Micro
10		10		GalCiv Gold Upgrade				Stardock Systems

                         - * -

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

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

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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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.

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Indelible Blue, a mail order company, provides OS/2 software and hardware solutions to customers worldwide.

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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.
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Copyright 1998   -   Falcon Networking
ISSN 1203-5696