Hacker Chronicles 2

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Text File | 1993-08-28 | 18KB | 348 lines

RAndY s RumOR RaG August 1993 NEWS IN YER FACE Here's a new one for you. You've surely seen the coffee mugs and pens emblazoned with corporate logos that companies routinely give away. Metromedia Communications is selling the PhonePass. It's a disposable credit card you give to a client which is good for a pre-determined amount of long distance service. The client you give it to uses it like a credit card and then throws it away when it's used up. You can have your logo printed on the card and callers using the card can even hear a customized greeting. Each PhonePass is available for 10-100 minutes of long distance time ($5-$50) and the minimum purchase of cards is $2,500. --------------- Intel is pushing the 486DX2/66 as an attempt to keep users away from AMD chips. AMD is due (as I write this) to release a 486 compatible chip based on non-Intel code. --------------- Microsoft will release a beta of Windows for Workgroups, code- named Snowball, in mid August and a new 3.11 version could be out by the fall. To be an integral part of the product will be IPX and TCP/IP protocol stacks. They're hoping to ease the installation process and reduce memory requirements. The product will be faster with database and disk I/O operations. Another goal is better connectivity with non-Windows environments. --------------- WordPerfect has delayed the release of InForms due to technical glitches, not a lawsuit from Shana Corp. (which markets a forms package called Informed). Shana claims that there is customer confusion over the name, but WordPerfect is sticking with its plans. Expect an interim release of InForms this fall which will include support for DDE and OLE 2. --------------- Quarterdeck is hoping that their new upgraded memory management software will provide the company with some financial stability. Recent releases of DOS have hurt their business severely, recently slipping 23.5%. --------------- Here's an interesting new product - PhotoMorph (from North Coast Software). Select a starting image and ending image, and place markers around the area to be morphed. The software will generate an animation. You control the compression and frames per second. Included is a runtime version of Video for Windows so you can distribute your animation. Several transitional effects are also possible. The list price is only $149.95. --------------- Expected to be released in August is the Scanman EasyTouch from Logitech. What distinguishes this scanner from others, besides its size and appearance, is that it requires no board. It connects to the parallel port (with a pass-through connector). The different software packages with which the scanner will be bundled will be TWAIN-compliant. Suggested list price will be $399. --------------- Oak Technology will introduce a Windows and OS/2 accelerator chip with multimedia capabilities. The chip, called Spitfire, has a video port that will accept full-color, full-motion video and display it in a window. The Spitfire has a 64-bit data path to graphics memory and a series of built-in FIFO buffers for maintaining transfer rates of up to 200M per second. There are four bit maps that allow Windows and NT raster operations to be performed in one step. There is an interface for VESA local bus, PCI, and ISA. --------------- Sales of Novell NetWare 4.0 are sluggish. Users are skittish about giving up what they've got and some are wary of version numbers ending in "0". There are also apparent problems with an inability to load Virtual Loadable Modules to launch under Windows, bindery emulation difficulties when using third party applications, and sluggish login times. There was one day recently when *no* support calls were received for NetWare 4. --------------- FREDDY PHARKAS FRONTIER PHARMACIST Imagine Leisure Suit Larry meets Blazing Saddles and you've pretty much got the idea. This new game from Sierra On-Line is very entertaining. You're an ex-gunslinger turned pharmacist in the Old West. Someone is trying to destroy your town and it's up to you to find out who it is and stop them. (HINT: The person you least suspect is the guilty party.) Along the way you'll encounter lots of interesting characters including an Indian sidekick (Eastern Indian), the local Madame, and the new Schoolmarm. The sound effects are excellent. In addition to the usual background music are interspersed occasional sampled sounds (like glass being broken, the crack of a whip, etc.). The puzzles are challenging and the scenery is very well done. There are several places in the game where a sepia-toned image is gradually transformed to natural color. I wouldn't recommend the game to children, due to miscellaneous sheep jokes and flatulent horses (with sound effects). The jokes aren't dirty, they're more corny than anything. --------------- AND SO IT GOES My PageMaker 5 woes continue. After ten days they returned my call. Their fix for the problem with old documents was to link with the original graphics. Unfortunately I don't have the original graphics. I've figured it out that it's the imported CGM graphics causing the problem. If I delete the graphics, the documents will print. If I replace existing graphics with new graphics, the documents will print. Looks like a problem with CGM graphics to me. This was confirmed with the Aldus call. They said that they were aware of a problem with the CGM import filter and a fix was due in the future. To compound the problem, imported CGM graphics from Corel are flipped upside-down. That makes extra work for me to flip them back the way they're supposed to be. I've tried the graphics in other programs and they're fine, so that tells me the problem is with PageMaker. Again, this was substantiated by Aldus Technical Support. Their suggestion was to use the filter from PageMaker4 and cautioned that there may be other problems using the older version. What ever happened to beta testing? --------------- MORE NEWS IN YER FACE The Sierra Network recently signed a pact with AT&T and General Atlantic Partners giving AT&T part ownership in The Sierra Network. The Sierra Network also aligned itself with Prodigy. Said John Williams, vice president of The Sierra Network, "The Sierra Network and Prodigy are a perfect fit. We're like the comics section and they're like the rest of the paper." --------------- Micronics, a major manufacturer of motherboards, is now making motherboards in standard and "green" versions. The board features two standard VL slots and an integrated VL-bus IDE controller. Micronics claims that energy savings could drop to $12 per year compared to $35 for standard systems. Air-conditioning costs could be reduced also, because it takes 1.5 watts of cooling energy for each watt of electricity consumed by a PC. --------------- WordPerfect has new DOS-based fax software available which lets users fax from within any DOS application. Soon to follow is a Windows version which is expected to support OCR and remote communications. The package was previously sold under the name of METZ/ExpressFax and was packaged with computers sold by Dell, Megahertz, Zoom Telephonics, and U.S. Robotics under OEM agreements. --------------- Concerning recent announcements of a layoff of 2,500 employees by Apple, Jay Leno recently quipped they were achieving their longtime dream of becoming the same size as IBM. --------------- I recently attended a WordPerfect product rollout and was amazed at the negative comments by resellers concerning Clinton and his proposed economic policies. A recent survey by Computer Reseller News found a majority of venture capitalists in the technology industry fear the Clinton administratin will be bad for business. I thought I was the only one who had this figured out. --------------- Sierra On-Line is scheduled to release a new Leisure Suit Larry in November called "Shape Up or Slip Out". Larry gets chosen as a contestant on a dating show and, of course, loses. The consolation prize is two weeks at La Costa Lotta health spa. I hear he's surrounded by women, each with a physical flaw that must be corrected. The icon and inventory bars are permanently visible and there are scrolling text bars. Police Quest IV is also due out soon, featuring photo- realistic images. This game was developed by former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates. You've probably heard that Sierra is moving their corporate offices to the Seattle area. Game development and TSN will stay in Coarsegold, CA. Hope Ken and Roberta like latte. Welcome to God's country. --------------- A new screen saver called Coaster has simulations of four well-know roller coaster rides from across the country. The simulations take the rider's point of view and use digitized sound (like the creaking of wood) and graphics. Scenery adjacent to the ride changes as the car moves. List price is $59.95 from Road Scholar Software and the program will be followed up by one that lets you build your own roller coaster. --------------- Microsoft and an un-named CD-ROM drive vendor are rumored to have plans for bundling Windows NT with a drive and SCSI adapter. In an unrelated piece of information, I learned that Microsoft's Mike Maples' son works for IBM on OS/2. Small world. --------------- EVEN MORE NEWS IN YER FACE In case you haven't noticed, DRAM prices have jumped noticeably. The price of 1 Meg SIMMs recently more than doubled. The culprit, for once, isn't restrictive government regulations. Fire recently destroyed the Sumitomo Chemical Company which produced 60% of the the world's epoxy resin which is used in chip manufacture. --------------- The Windows word processor wars will be heating up this fall. It is expected that Word for Windows will beat out WordPerfect for Windows 6 in getting to market. Word for Windows will support OLE 2 and also include Wizards, background printing, editable print previews, open database connectivity, and automatic calculation of tables. WordPerfect for Windows 6 will not initially support OLE 2, but will have features not found in Word such as expanded spreadsheet capabilities within tables. You'll also see the Coaches feature from the new DOS WordPerfect. WordPerfect reports that in the first few days after the introducion of the new DOS word processor they shipped over 500,000 copies. --------------- It Was Only A Matter of Time Dept.: I see that someone is now offering an adult PhotoCD. Technology marches on... --------------- What's the difference between Jurassic Park and IBM? One's a high-tech theme park for dinosaurs and the other is a movie by Steven Spielberg. Want another take on this one? What's the difference between Jurassic Park and Microsoft? One is a high-tech theme park dominated by expensive, nasty, hungry, predatory monsters that will destroy anything they can get their teeth into, and the other is a movie. --------------- WARNING: If you got a Publisher 2.0 demo disk from Microsoft, be sure it's clean. Reports are that it contains the Forms virus. Microsoft confirms the fact and blames it on a third-party manufacturer. Clean disks will be sent out. Some wonder if this is a ploy to sell more DOS 6 with anti-virus. --------------- Bill Gates recently slammed Novell saying this regarding Novell's role in the FTC investigation, "The only issues that are still active are the ones Novell raises to sell more of their attempted clone product". Gates said he is "very disappointed" in the way Novell fueled the investigation. Gates also said, "Novell has stuffed the hell out of the channel and only succeeded in confusing themselves anew. They have a bifurcated strategy offering NetWare as a file server and Unix as an application server". --------------- EIGHT BALLS OF FIRE I think they should call this one "Give Me A Break" instead of "Take A Break". Sierra started advertising this over a year ago, then you suddenly heard nothing about it. I assume they had some programming difficulties or something. Anyway, it's finally here. Pinball has never been too popular on the computer. I think it's because you can't hit and shake the machine (this game allows for that - be careful you don't TILT), and up until now, computer pinball simulations have been lame. Sierra has done an outstanding job with this one. You get eight different games featuring themes from their adventure games. There are three games from Space Quest, two from Nova 9, one from Leisure Suit Larry, Willie Beamish, and the King's Quest series. My least favorite is the Willie Beamish one - because there's so much going on that it's hard to keep track of the ball. Each of the games is different, not just the same game with a different background. Each presents its own challenges. It looks like they have provided for adding games in the future. The action is excellent and as realistic as you'll see on a computer simulation. There are tons of music and sound effects, supplemented by animated characters who may sometimes come out and steal your ball. One of the Nova 9 games has two effects which could not be done with a real pinball machine. You can have up to four different players and the best part is that you don't need a quarter to play. The executable file has a variety of icons available to keep your boss from catching you when you minimize a game. --------------- COREL KODAK MOMENT Later in August, Corel will release a series of Kodak PhotoCD products called "Corel Professional Photos". They plan to release more than 40 titles within the next two months and will have approximately 100 by the year's end. Each title will have an SRP of $49.95. Corel plans to donate $1 for each CD registration to Child Find, a charity that locates missing children. There are 100 images per disk, all royalty free and compatible with both PC and Mac. Included on the disks are utilities to aid the user in manipulating and utilizing the images. There will be a screen saver and wallpaper flipper utility along with Corel Mosaic (visual file manager) and Corel PhotoCD Lab (slide show program). There will also be five musical accompaniments to each disk along with the excellent Corel-Audio CD player. Some of the first titles will include the Arctic, birds, churches, insects, lingerie, Porsches, sunrises and sunsets, and trees. --------------- INFORMS A lot of people who manage large numbers of forms have been waiting for this one for some time. I don't have the time to really get into the program, and have no need for such a thing in my businesses. (I do have a dealer copy though.) I saw the package demonstrated at a WordPerfect rollout and the reps put it through its paces better than I could. It's impressive. Not only can you create forms, fill them in on the screen and print them out - but you can link them with any popular database format. Forms can be easily distributed throughout a network and a QBE feature makes queries easy. The electronic signature feature is one WordPerfect is particularly proud of. After you electronically sign a form, that form cannot be modified using a TamperSeal technology. This is a two-part package. Within a corporation, only a few people are likely to need the designer module. The filler module is the one more people will probably use. You also get the standard spell checker, ATM, over 100 form templates, calculations with over 120 functions, and Bitstream TrueType fonts. If you need to manage numerous forms across a network, this is the one that will certainly fill your needs. --------------- NEW SOUND CHIPS Media Vision is now offering OEMs two new chip sets - the Jazz and Jazz 16 - with low power consumption for adding sound to laptops. The Jazz chip set includes the MVD1208 8-bit audio controller, the MVA408 8-bit code and the MVA514 mixer. The Jazz 16 includes the 16-bit MVD1216 audio controller, the MVA416 16-bit codec, and the same mixer used n the Jazz chip set. Each chip set can play and record either mono or stereo sound at up to 44.1kHz. ================================= DISCLAIMER RAndY's RumOR RaG is published on a monthly basis by AINSWORTH COMPUTER SERVICES and is available on various local BBS's, GEnie, and America Online as well as in ModemNews. In case anyone cares, RAndY's RumOR RaG is produced on a 486- 50 with 8 megs of memory, Diamond Stealth Pro VESA VLB (1 MB), 105 MB Toshiba IDE hard drive, Teac 1.2 MB and 1.44 MB floppies, Pro Audio Spectrum 16 running a Hitachi 3750 CD ROM drive, Sceptre SVGA display, Microsoft mouse, WordPerfect for Windows and transmitted through a US Robotics HST Dual Standard modem. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Comments should be addressed to Ainsworth Computer Services on GEnie, America Online, phone, analog mail, or whatever method makes you feel good. AINSWORTH COMPUTER SERVICES 605 W. Wishkah Aberdeen, WA 98520-6031 (206) 533-6647 GEnie Address: RAG America Online: RumOR RaG For the full edition of Randy's Rumor Rag please stop in at ModemNews Express 203.359.2299 .ed.