5/21/95                        CompuNotes                      Issue #10
                  Patrick Grote, Publisher and Editor
     CompuNotes is a weekly publication available through an email
           distribution list and many fine on-line networks!
                   We feature reviews, interviews and
                 commentary concerning the PC industry.

     +-----------------------------------------------------------+
     |  You won't see any mention of the Microsoft/Intuit deal   |
     |  falling through. We figured the popular media would be   |
     |            chock full of reports about it!                |
     +-----------------------------------------------------------+
     +-----------------------------------------------------------+
     |Speaking of Microsoft . . .                                |
     |                                                           |
     |             Tom Brokaw will profile Microsoft             |
     |               entrepreneur Bill Gates in the              |
     |             one-hour special, "Tycoon," to air            |
     |            May 26 at 10:00 p.m. on NBC. Brokaw            |
     |             goes behind the gates of Microsoft            |
     |              Corporation and explores future              |
     |                   plans for the company.                  |
     |                                                           |
     +-----------------------------------------------------------+

                         This Week's Contents:
                         =====================
                                  NEWS
                                  ====
          -=> Murdoch Cautious About Electronic Domination <=-
             -=> Apple Looking Global for Good Fortune <=-
                          WEB SITE OF THE WEEK
                          ====================
                -=> The Year 2000 Information Center <=-
                          FTP FILE OF THE WEEK
                          ====================
          -=> Safepack Optimizes Any Drive including OS/2 <=-
                                REVIEWS
                                =======
                 -=> Lotus Organizer 2.0 by Chip Cox<=-
                  -=> Spin Wizard by Wayne MacLeod <=-
                               INTERVIEW
                               =========
                 -=> The Doom Master, Hank Leukart <=-
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
   NEWS OF THE WEEK| This section is dedicated to verified news . . .
       All News (C)opyright  Respective Owner - Will Only Reprint
------------------------------------------------------------------------
          -=> Murdoch Cautious About Electronic Domination <=-

    HELSINKI, May 19 (Reuter) - Media mogul Rupert Murdoch, in Finland
``to beg for paper'' amid a global newsprint shortage, vowed on Friday
that all the newspapers in his News Corporation stable would soon be
published electronically.
    But he warned it would take some time for the online newspaper to
catch on -- and although he said the electronic information superhighway
was rich with promise, he saw it putting an end to talk of media
monopolies.
    Murdoch, whose newspaper, television and film empire spans four
continents, also said he ``very honestly'' did not know yet if he would
make a bid for Italian billionaire former prime minister Silvio
Berlusconi's three television channels.
    Berlusconi's Fininvest group said last week it was evaluating a News
Corp offer for its television interests, which Berlusconi has often said
he is ready to sell since leaving business for politics last year.
    Murdoch was speaking at an impromptu news conference after meeting
Finnish paper marketing group Finnpap, which has supplied his family
with paper for decades. He came personally to seek long-term supply
guarantees.
    News Corp buys about 400,000 tonnes of Finnish paper a year and
Murdoch said he would like some 200,000 tonnes more: ``But it is all
sold out. I quite understand that there are people who are desperate for
paper.''
    Murdoch said that within a couple of years all his publications
would be available online. ``Whether people will pay for them, whether
people will use them, we don't know.''
    There are many possible uses of the electronic highway, Murdoch
said. ``No one yet has found a way to make a profit on it -- I believe
one day somebody will. The trick is to get into the business without
losing too much money for a few years.''
    Murdoch's power, acquisitiveness and deep pockets have prompted
critics to say he could soon have a stranglehold on the British media.
But he argued that the rise of electronic media could shatter current
media monoliths.
    ``The great thing that's happening, and the electronic revolution is
bringing it about to some extent ... is to open up the possibility of
newspapers being started on very little capital,'' he said.
    ``No one's going to be able to have any monopolies -- the bigger you
are, the more vulnerable you'll be to attack from someone around the
corner with a better idea. And they won't need a lot of money to start
against you.''

             -=> Apple Looking Global for Good Fortune <=-

 By James McNair, The Miami Herald  Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News

    `May 19--The Apple Macintosh is as American as, well, apple pie, but
pull back the crust and you'll find a manufacturer with customers,
plants, employees and more than 50 percent of its sales from around the
world.
    That was the homily Apple Computer's top U.S. sales executive gave
to a group of about 30 Miami-Dade Community College students Thursday.
To do business in large foreign markets, said Apple USA President James
J. Buckley, American corporations have to set up homespun operations
there.
    "This year we decided to invest in five emerging markets around the
world (China, India, South Korea, Mexico and Brazil) because the growth
in the business we're in will hit a wall in a couple of years," he said.
    Buckley used Brazil as his example. Of the nearly 1 million personal
computers sold annually in Brazil, only 3 percent are Apple Macintoshes.
But through a series of actions, Apple expects to increase its sales in
Brazil by an average of 80 percent a year and attain a 10 percent market
share in 1998.
    This year Apple has established a Brazilian subsidiary, opened a
sales office, developed a distribution channel, approved advertising
programs and is working on deals with software developers, contract
manufacturers, warehousers and third-party customer-support providers in
Brazil, Buckley said.
    "South America is a market where, quite frankly, the means of entry
into a country is to have a business in that country," he said.
    Apple moved its Latin American sales headquarters to Coral Gables
last summer and employs about 40 people. Buckley was in Miami primarily
on a customer visit, but paid a courtesy call to MDCC's downtown campus,
where Apple placed one of its first 10 PowerMac prototypes six months
ago.
    Fifty-four percent of Apple's $2.65 billion in second-quarter
revenue came from overseas. That percentage is likely to grow as Apple
creates business infrastructures in two of the world's most populous
countries, China and India.
    "It doesn't mean we're not an American company anymore," Buckley
said. "But we've opened operations in Shanghai to help us operate
locally in China and we're doing software development in India."
    The presence of skilled development teams in other countries now
enables Apple to perform technical work around the clock, he said. When
Apple programmers in California go home for the day, their work is
tested in India at night, then prescribed remedies in Ireland in the
early morning, he said.
    "If I'm the programmer, the code I wrote yesterday has been tested,
validated - or proved wrong - and the rewrite recommendations have been
done, so when I get to work, I start to fix that," he said.
    Four companies are now making clones of the PowerMac, and Buckley
said he expects two or three more in the next few months. He credited
the licensing strategy for an overflow crowd at the company's Worldwide
Developer Conference in San Jose, Calif., last week.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
WEBSITE OF THE WEEK! | This section is devoted to a cool WebSite . . .
------------------------------------------------------------------------

                INTERNET INFORMATION CENTER ESTABLISHED
                      ON YEAR 2000 COMPUTER CRISIS
 
    Brampton, Ont, Canada, May 1, 1995 - Peter de Jager and The Tenagra
Corporation are pleased to announce the opening of the Year 2000
Information Center on the Internet World-Wide Web. For many computer and
software systems, the year 2000 will bring a host of problems related to
software programs that record the year using only the last two digits.
This faulty standard will cost the worldwide computer community billions
of dollars in programming effort.
 
    The Year 2000 Information Center allows Internet users to get the
latest facts and information on the Year 2000 computer crisis, and
provides a forum for the discussion of possible solutions.
 
    Hosting a continually updated clock showing the number of years,
days, hours, minutes and seconds remaining until the Year 2000, the
Information Center also provides free access to information made
available by vendors and service providers that offer consulting and
solutions.

                    The Year 2000 Information Center
                  http://arganet.tenagra.com/year2000/

    An electronic mailing list has also been established for discussion
of the year 2000 problem. By sending an email message to
listmanager@hookup.net with the text SUBSCRIBE YEAR2000 in the body of
the message (not in the subject), Internet users can join the mailing
list.
 
                        The clock is ticking...

------------------------------------------------------------------------
COOL FTP FILE OF THE WEEK | You may need this file . . .
------------------------------------------------------------------------
    SAFEPACK is a disk defragmenter, designed to improve the effective
performance of your hard disk(s). It has been designed with the safety
of your data as the most important concern, and unlike some other
defragmenters, your data should not be harmed in any way by interruption
to the running of the program.
    Users who run OS/2 with "FAT" volumes can benefit from SAFEPACK's
ability to defragment their extended attribute files.
    Full instruction for the use of SAFEPACK may be found in the file
SAFEPACK.DOC.
    SAFEPACK is a shareware program. This evaluation version includes
all features of the program, and is not crippled in any way. You may use
it for up to 30 days, without charge (see SAFEPACK.DOC for more
details). If you like the program, and wish to continue its use after
this evaluation period, you are required to pay for the program (see
REGISTER.DOC for more details). Any fee you may have paid to others
(disk vendors, dealers, etc.) to obtain this evaluation version was a
fee for their copying an d distribution services, rather than a payment
for continued use of the program.

      You can find this as SAFPAK21.ZIP on the following FTP site:

        WUARCHIVE.WUSTL.EDU:/pub/MSDOS_UPLOADS/misc/safpak21.zip

------------------------------------------------------------------------
REVIEWS OF THE WEEK | Interesting software/hardware you may need . . .
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                       Lotus Organizer Release 2
                          Reviewed By Chip Cox

    Organizer 2 is a computerized scheduling system.  It incorporates
multiple calendars, project schedules, an address book, anniversary
schedule, call history section , notepad and a to-do list into a easy to
manage system.  Since I started working with Organizer I have become
increasingly dependent on it for organizing my week.  Schedules can be
viewed in a variety of formats.  These include different levels of
detail depending on the time span displayed on a page.  The to-do list
is the section I use mo
    Activities are separated by due date (Future, Current, Overdue, and
Completed).  Within each category they are sorted by date and priority.
The Notepad section provides a categorized set of notepad pages to write
down quick notes and updates on projects or any other task.  I keep
notes concerning development projects I am working on in my notepad.
This allows me to review the status on each project without having to
place large amounts of text in my to-do list.  The planner section
displays either a quart quarterly or yearly calendar with up to 4 projects
tracked on each day.  Mine shows days I will be in training and days I
will be on vacation.  Meetings scheduled in my calendar also are
displayed on the project plan.  The Address section provides a phone and
address list for both business and home contacts.  The anniversary
section is one of the default calendars. Other calendars can be created
and loaded. A Holiday calendar is shipped with Organizer.  Organizer 2
has a very nice section for tracking calls.  Th is section includes the
name of the person called.  The time of the call.  The duration of the
call is tracked as well as the result of the call (busy, completed). All
of these features work together to help busy executives plan their
schedules.
    Some of the features of organizer mentioned above deserve to be
covered in greater detail.  The calendar functions allow scheduled
events to be repeated.  Organizer provides a wide range of choices to
describe when an event should be repeated.  These choices range from
daily to every tenth year unless it is on a weekend and then it should
be moved to the nearest week day.  Organizer also will find time in your
schedule for a meeting and warn you if a scheduled time conflicts with
another commitment.  The all section includes an auto dialer if you have
a modem attached to your system.  This is one of those tools I never had
much use for but I can see where it would be very useful to a sales
person or a telemarketing representative who spends their day on the
phone.
    A couple of nice features I was not able to test out on my
configuration at my home but that we use with Organizer at work, are the
calendar sharing and appointment scheduling features.  When installed on
a LAN Organizer will allow users on the same fileserver to view each
others calendars and actually schedule meetings for each other.  The
recipient of the meeting has the right to decline to attend and
reschedule the meeting.  At work, my coworkers and I use this feature
primarily to keep up with what h other will be doing during the day.  I
can see their calendars reflected on my calendar.  Users who are not on
the same fileserver are not out of luck.  Lotus uses several popular
e-Mail programs to exchange appointment requests between users on
different file servers.  My experience has been with cc:Mail and after a
slightly tedious setup procedure in cc:Mail for the users, the process
works wonderfully from organizer.
    Organizer also supports printing schedules in a variety of formats.
Many of these formats conform to popular daily scheduling books.  Since
organizer runs in Microsoft Windows no special setup is needed to work
with most printers.
    In conclusion, Organizer 2 is a giant step forward for Lotus
organizer. As with any product it takes a little time to get used to but
is well worth the effort.  If you are upgrading from a previous version
of Organizer, you will find Organizer 2 faster and easier to use with
many more options than previous versions.  If you are new to Organizer
you will be happy with the options offered and the flexibility of the
product.  One final note, There is one downside to using organizer at
home.  My wife has d discovered Organizer. My to do list now shows that I
have to cut the grass, finish building the patio, and wash the car this
weekend.

                           Lotus Corporation
                            55 Cambridge Pky
                          Cambridge, MA 02142
                             (800) TRADE-UP
                          CompuServe: GO LOTUS
                       WWW: http://www.lotus.com


                              SPIN WIZARD
                       Review by Wayne A. MacLeod

    If you use Windows and you are anything like me, you have  too many
Program groups and too many items in each group, BUT.....You tend to use
some a lot more than others. I have 32 Program Groups with from 2 to 35
individual applications in each.  I have a Communications group, a Lotus
group, an Editors group, a Graphics group and so on. I probably have 10
programs that I use each and every day and another 10 to 20 I use during
the week.  To be honest, I probably have some programs I have never used
more than once.
    I also like keeping programs in somewhat logical groups so that it
is a bit easier to find a specific type of program when I need it. This
makes for a "neat" and logical Desktop, but it is not very functional. I
have tried many of the applications launchers available to try to make
my Desktop more functional, but have never been completely satisfied
with any of them. Either they did not allow for assigning enough
individual programs, did not allow themselves to be placed where I
wanted them, were not aesthetically pleasing or something else would be
not quite right. I saw SpinWizard, thought it looked good and am happy
to have had an opportunity to evaluate it.
    SpinWizard is an eight sided 3-D carousel like application launcher
at its simplest with the ability to record tasks and switch between
running applications. Each of the eight sides allows for loading of 8
individual applications with their own full sized icons. Each of the
eight sides is color coded.  When SpinWizard is active, the front row
represents the eight applications that you can access with a single
mouse click. Also visible are the rows just prior and just after the
active row. These rows are "grayed" out, but are easily activated by
simply clicking on one of the inactive applications that brings that row
to the front. You can immediately switch to any row, visible or not, by
clicking on the color associated with that row. You can also access a
specific row by using the 1-8 keyboard number keys with each color
having a specific number assigned.
    Applications are loaded onto SpinWizard either by simple dragging
and dropping an icon from one of your groups or from FileManager onto
the desired button or by using the "Load Button" menu that brings up a
selection box allowing you to browse your system for files to load. To
add a "task" such as a Word or AmiPro document that you use frequently
onto the bar, you need to ensure that the correct application such as
Word for Win or  AmiPro is associated with that particular file type or
that specific file.
    Applications and/or tasks are launched by a simple mouse click or
the keyboard equivalent. Each SW button  will also have either an
exclamation mark or row of three buttons in its upper right corner used
to show if the button represents an application or a recorded task and
if the button is already running. For example, a greyed exclamation mark
indicates that an application is currently inactive while three red dots
shows that all applications involved in the recorded task are currently
active.
    Each individual  button can be edited. The editing menu allows you
to perform many windows functions such as moving the button, deleting
the button, cut and paste.  You can also assign a label to the button
that is displayed along the bottom of the icon, a longer description
that is displayed when the mouse cursor is placed on the button and a
description for the row itself. You can also change the icon itself
choosing from those supplied with SpinWizard or from any icon containing
file on your system.
    Minimum system requirements include MS Windows 3.1, a 386 CPU, 4MB
of RAM and a VGA display. MSRP $29.95

                        Tanisys Technology, Inc.
                        1310 RR 620 South #B195
                         Austin, TX 78734-6342
                             1-800-460-SPIN
                            CompuServe: NONE
                               WWW: NONE

------------------------------------------------------------------------
INTERVIEW OF THE WEEK | Interesting people you should know about . . .
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                            -=> Mr. Doom <=-
    OK, I know most of you have become hooked at one time or another on
Doom! Admit it. That is the first step to becoming cured!
    You have probably run to the Doom FAQ for help or highlights on
getting through the various levels. Were you aware the FAQ is pretty
much considered the bible of Doom? In that case the high priest must be
Hank Leukart.
    Hank Who? Look at the author of your Doom guidebook you just bought
at the store. That Hank!
    As close as an expert as one can get without actually have written
the game, Hank's involvement with Doom has been skyward since the
beginning. Here's our chat with him . . .

CN: Do the words Pearl Jam mean anything to you? What type of music are
you in to?
 
HL: Yes, I have heard Pearl Jam, but I don't listen to them to often.  I
enjoy music like Sting, Boyz II Men, Liz Phair, and Hoodi and the
Blowfish, as well as come classical; in other words, a pretty big
variety.  I don't care what kind of music it is, as long as it sounds
good!

 
PG: Ok. Just like everyone asks a car reviewer or mechanic what kind of
car they drive, what is the configuration and type of your primary PC?

HL: I recently purchased (in January) a Micron Pentium 90 with 16mb of
RAM, a 1gb hard drive, a 17" monitor, a 2mb Diamond Stealth video card,
a Sound Blaster AWE32 (and I use a Gravis Ultrasound sometimes as well),
and 4x CD-ROM drive.  I connect to the Internet using a 28.8k GVX
Maxtech FAX Modem (alas, I don't have a T1 connection), use a mouse for
DOOM and a Gravis Gamepad for One Must Fall.  I run Windows NT in
addition to DOS.

 
PG: Define the Information Superhighway in your own words.
 
HL: The Information Superhighway is an annoying phrase that the public
and media have picked up to describe the Internet.  It is overhyped and
overused.  The Internet is very cool when people know how to use it.
The REAL Information Superhighway (the one Gore talks about) has not
been (and may never be) built yet.
 

PG: When did your involvement with PCs begin? How?
 
HL: Our family had their first computer when I was about 2 years old: an
Apple II+.  I remember playing Olympic Decathalon day in and day out
with my sisters.  I first started using a modem about four years ago and
came on the Internet about two years ago.

 
PG: In this text medium its hard to visualize a person. Describe
yourself so we get a good picture of your physical presence.
 
HL: I'm a white, 16-year old male with curly brown hair, blue eyes, six
feet tall, and a longish face.  Of course, you can check out my picture
at my home page (http://www.portal.com/~hleukart).

 
PG: We know you have written one book. How is it doing? What have you
blown the money on?
 
HL: The book is doing quite well and is already in its second reprint.
With the additional amount of publicity that will appear in the upcoming
months, the book should do very well!  All of the E-mail I have gotten
about the book is ALL positive, which is rare considering that most
people prefer to complain about things then to complement people on
them! I bought my new Pentium with a small portion of the advance and
have thrown everything else in the bank to gain interest.

 
PG: Any future plans for a book? Any more Doom merchandising
involvement?
 
HL: I don't have any more plans for "DOOM merchandising," but I do hope
to write more books!  No definite plans as yet.

 
PG: Why do you think Doom became as popular as it is? Explain . . .
 
HL: I'm asked this question a lot by interviewers.  Here are the four
major reasons why DOOM is so incredibly popular:
 
    (1) The violence.  The public is attracted to sex and violence, and
DOOM definitely has violence.  Blood is thrown everywhere and living
things explode all over the place! (2) The realism.  People are
fascinated by the reproduction of reality on a computer screen.  The game
seems so real and so life-like. (3) The ability to edit.  After you've
played the standard DOOM levels, you're not done with the game.  People
love making their own enemies, maps, and sounds to actually CUSTOMIZE
and already great game. (4) Multiplayer ability.  After you've beaten
the computer 100 times over, computer games tend to be a little boring.
DOOM changes all that by allowing you to compete with other human
players anytime you wish by allowing modem and network support.

 
PG: Has ID Software ever formally contacted you concerning your
involvement as a FAQ and book author? What was it like?
 
HL: I have E-mailed id on many occasions discussing the FAQ and the
like.  What was it like?  On the Internet, everyone is behind a computer
screen--it was no different E-mailing id than it was E-mailing a
stranger. ;)

 
PG: Where do think games on the PC are going? Describe your perfect game
 
HL: There are so many types of different PC games that it is hard to
make a generalization about where they "are going."  Definitely, we're
going to see a lot more realistic games in the future with better
graphics, sounds, and gameplay.  Hopefully, virtual virtual reality will
become mainstream.  The best type of games are definitely what the kind
of games that id strives to create: games with "complete immersion"
capabilities.
 
---END INTERVIEW

   You can get the infamous Doom Faq at ftp.cdrom.com: /pub/idgames!

                    This issue was brought to you by
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