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

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


OS/2 e-Zine!		March 1997			volume 2, number 3
----------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 1997		Haligonian Media  		ISSN 1203-5696


OPINIONS:

  From the Editor
  Chris' Rant
  the Rave
	... File Freedom
  Java: The Unrealized Future


DEPARTMENTS:

  the Beta File
  Answers from e-Zine!
  Chris' ColorWorks Power Tips
  Object Desktop Tips
  Need for Speed
  the REXX Files
  How Do I?


FOCUS:

Chatting with OS/2 - All you need to know about IRC

IRC: A Primer | IRC Networks | GammaTech IRC | OpenChat/2

INTERVIEW:

Max Mikhanosha - David C. Guttormsen chats with Max Mikhanosha, author of the highly acclaimed OpenChat/2.

REVIEWS:

Hardware:
	SyQuest EZFlyer 230 - Christopher B. Wright
Software:
	PlusPak! for OS/2 - Jon Cochran


ARTICLES:

InJoy IP Masquerading - Jon Winters
Getting Updated, Staying Updated - Nenad Milenkovic
What's New from EurOS/2 - Martin Brampton
Warp 5 and Other Rumours - Martin Alfredsson


END NOTES:

* The Chronicles of John Ominor
* Hot Sellers - the top 15 selling OS/2 applications from Indelible Blue.
* Hot Sellers - the top 10 selling OS/2 applications from J3 Computer Technologies.
* Hot Sellers - the top 10 selling OS/2 applications from BMT Micro.


ODDS & ENDS:

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


Copyright 1997   -   Haligonian Media
ISSN 1203-5696

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

OS/2 is dead! -- (Yeah, right.)

-----

I tend to do a lot of hard drive pruning, backing up, folder rearranging and other housekeeping near the middle of each month.  It's not that I don't like what I do or even that I'm not a hard worker.  I really enjoy OS/2 e-Zine! and almost all the work that goes into each issue.  It's just that I'm a bit of a procrastinator.  If there is any little detail that I can tweak on my system, I'll do it before I get down to work.

So as I sit here in the first few weeks of March, I have a very smoothly running OS/2 Warp 4 computer.  _Very_ smoothly running.

In fact, my computer is a productivity dream come true.  Performance is snappy, it's stable as a rock and I've got a native utility or application for almost every task I can imagine.  In short, I'm deliriously happy with OS/2.

But despite my happiness with OS/2, when I cruise the 'net I invariably come across someone that insists on telling me that I should, "dump OS/2.  It's dead, it has no future, boo hoo hoo, blah blah blah."  And it's not always just longtime Windows users who are doing this either.

Please understand, I don't begrudge anyone their opinion and I know that evangelism comes easy to computer types, especially OS/2 users.  But what I can not figure out is why some people go to the trouble (and some people go to a _lot_ of trouble) that they do to try to convince me _not_ to use a platform.  It's not quite the same thing as trying to convince me to _use_ a platform, if you see what I mean.

For example, like many of you, I'm not particularly in love with Microsoft.  I don't hate their products like some of you may, but I'm sure I could use them and be relatively happy (in fact, before I discovered OS/2 I did).  Still, I am _not_ thrilled with Windows of any variety and I think OS/2 is a better OS.  So I might go out of my way to explain to someone else why this is.  I might go so far as to suggest that he or she _really_ should try OS/2.  But why would I ever bother to tell someone that he should _not_ use a Microsoft product?  Quite simply, I wouldn't.

And yet, I can't get away from these whackos that insist on telling _me_ why I should _not_ continue to use OS/2.

The people who just troll around newsgroups looking for a fight I can almost understand (although I don't identify with them -- I've never visited comp.os.microsoft.advocacy and I couldn't care less what operating system people there use or talk about).  But the blubbering sissies who go out of their way to announce to the world in print magazines or on their WWW sites why they believe everyone should immediately stop using OS/2 really confuse and irritate me.

Other contributors have echoed these sentiments in past issues but it seems that this type of person just never goes away.  Despite the OS/2 community's repeated insistence that most of us are very happy with OS/2 and are getting quite a bit of work done every day, these people insist on telling us that, "OS/2 is dead," and that we should cease using it immediately.  I mean, they did, didn't they?

Well I've got news for them: I use OS/2 for the same reason _you_ use OS/2; because I like what it _does_ for me.  Not what it _will do_ for me.  Not what it _could_ do for me.  Not what NT _doesn't_ do for me.  Just what OS/2 does for me.  Right here, right now, today.

I'm one of those people who believes that IBM has quite a bit more in store for our favourite OS -- but let's assume, for argument's sake, that OS/2 development does cease (IBM has explicitly stated, by the way, that development will continue).  Would I stop using OS/2 now?  Absolutely not.  It is, quite simply, the best tool available to me today to get the work done that I want to get done.  I wouldn't even consider using an inferior tool just because it "may some day be better".

So considering the facts that a) OS/2 is already the best tool for me and b) IBM is going to continue to enhance it, why do these people continue to anti-evangelize to us?  I just don't know.  If they have decided that OS/2 is not the best tool for them, I completely understand if they stop using it.  But I don't sympathize with them when they insist on posting or printing excessive obituaries for a platform that is quite obviously doing very well for most of us.

Like I said, _my_ machine is humming along smoothly and providing me with productivity galore.  So let the whackos post their notices on their web sites, whining about why they think we should all stop using OS/2.  As for me, well, my computer is running _very_ smoothly and I just can't find any way to improve it any more.  I guess I'll have to get to work now.

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

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NetOp Remote Control Software for OS/2 with cross platform support to Windows (either direction).  Free evaluation copies available.

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ChipChat produces excellent 32-bit OS/2 software for wireless text paging and state-of-the-art multimedia Sound Cards for Micro Channel PS/2 computers.

(http://www.emtec.com/) EmTec Innovative Software
EmTec Innovative Software produces state-of-the-art OS/2 ISDN, modem and telnet communications software.  OS/2 Magazine and Inside OS/2 1995 award winner.

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

(http://www.hotinc.com/) House of Technology, Inc.
Your Canadian Source For OS/2 Applications.

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

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

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

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

(http://www.Mount-Baker.com/) Mt. Baker Software
Developers of Money Tree, a full featured personal financial package for OS/2.

(http://prairie.lakes.com/~oberon/) Oberon Software, Inc.
Home of TE/2, TE/2 Pro and other fine OS/2 programs.  Specializing in telecommunications and the Internet.

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

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

(http://www.cfw.com/~shenan/) Shenandoah Equipment Co.
Providers of lifetime warrantied name brand simms, laptop and printer memory at competitive prices.

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

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

***********************************
	
Chris' Rant	- by Chris Wenham

-----

Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions

Most of these are real questions I've been asked by real people.  No, I'm not kidding either, even the one about the Mac.  While most of the time I've tried to talk to these people calmly and explain things in a clear manner, there are occasions where I'm just so dumbfounded at the incredible stupidity of the question, it requires a superhuman act of strength not to collapse into a puddle of laughter.

I've secretly kept a stock of snappy replies to the dumb (DUMB!  Boy are we talking about brain dead!) questions that get asked every now and then.  Here's a few of the printable ones, use them anytime you're at a loss for words.

"Why don't you have Windows 95? It has THOUSANDS of applications!"

o  A - "I can't afford to buy THOUSANDS of applications."
o  B - "China has a billion people, should I move?"
o  C - "246 text editors, 593 variations of Solitaire, 887 digital clocks..."

"Geez, OS/2 has all these dumb acronyms -- WPS, HPFS, SOM -- how can you understand all that stuff?"

o  A - "Geez, Windows has all these dumb acronyms -- GPF, UAE, VFAT -- how can you understand all that stuff?"
o  B - "We couldn't come up with snappier ones like 'OLE', 'PIF' and 'DDE'."
o  C - "Well, that's because the folks in the engineering department designed it instead of the guys in marketing."

"Oh yeah?  Well the Mac has OpenDoc, OpenGL and drag-n-drop, what are the OS/2 equivalents of THAT???"

o  A - "Um... OpenDoc.... OpenGL... and drag-n-drop."
o  B - "I know you're going to be terribly disappointed, but..."
o  C - "Say, how about I e-mail you this screen shot here..."

"Haven't you upgraded to Windows 95 yet?"

o  A - "UPgraded?"
o  B - "No, it gave my computer rabies and I had to hack off the monitor for the vet to examine."
o  C - "Yes, I found it in my box of cornflakes this morning taped to an AOL startup disk."

"Why are there no OS/2 applications when I go to my local computer store?"

o  A - "You're still going to computer stores?  Did they disconnect your phone?"
o  B - "We're not THAT backwards compatible!"
o  C - "Do you see any T-Bone steaks at McDonalds?"

"Isn't it hard to get applications for OS/2?"

o  A - "Yes, sometimes I even have to take them out of the box."
o  B - "Yes, I had to rent a second truck the other day...."
o  C - "I don't know, some catalogs only have 60-70."

"OS/2?  Isn't that dead?"

o  A - "Yes, it's died 8 times now, it's due to die again this summer."
o  B - "Only if you work for Ziff Davis."
o  C - "Only if you spell your name J-A-S-O-N  P-E-R-L-O-W."
o  D - "No, but I hear Elvis made an appearance at a gas station around here..."

"Do you guys, like, have a graphical interface now?"

o  A - "Excuse me, I appear to be choking on something."
o  B - "No, we talk to it now... no really... stop laughing."
o  C - "No, we still have to wave sticks at it and grunt."

-----

(http://www.spectra.net/~fox/) Chris Wenham is a Team OS/2er in Binghamton, NY with a catchy-titled company -- (http://www.spectra.net/~pendulum/webworks/) Wenham's Web Works. He has written comedy, sci-fi, HTML, Pascal, C++ and now writes software reviews.

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

the Rave: File Freedom v1.5a	- by Noah Sumner

-----

I'm always on the lookout for good OS/2 software and I have found many such pieces of software that I believe to be very well designed.  However, rarely am I able to find a piece of software as good as File Freedom.  I used a copy of FileStar by SofTouch systems for a while and even upgraded it to version 2.  I no longer use that product however, because I have found File Freedom to be much better.

I first downloaded File Freedom at version 1.0.  Even then the product was good, but not really worth writing about.  Since then though, in a very short period of time it has been improved in dozens of ways.  I have never had a problem with File Freedom since I started using it, but I often download updates; not because of bugs but because of new features (isn't that a nice change?).

The Basics

File Freedom is a very powerful file management program.  When you want to do something there is only one problem: you have to decide which of the various ways available you wish to accomplish your task.  The author has made File Freedom very easy to use by making it so that users may complete tasks in any way they find intuitive.  This makes File Freedom much easier to use than any of the other products for OS/2 I have seen.  In fact, I can't even begin to tell all the ways you can accomplish most tasks, there are that many!  However the important thing to note is that everything can be done by mouse or keyboard with ease.

Also, new in v1.5 of FileFreedom, the developer has added drag and drop support for most file actions.  This provides even more choice and increases the product's native OS/2 feel.

One of the nicest features included in File Freedom is the ability to create a Desktop object with only a having to hit a few buttons.  Just two simple mouse clicks and you can have a ready-made program object of your favourite application.

All the features most people use on a regular basis are included and easy to use in File Freedom.  There is something that almost everyone will find hard to live without.  For instance, the ability to view the contents of a ZIP file without uncompromising it, right in the File Manager!

File Freedom is also very configurable.  There is a particular package which I really like to use to view text files, and without any difficulty I set up File Freedom to load that program when I click on any text file.  And the one feature I missed from FileStar (undelete), I was able to add to File Freedom as well without any difficulty.

All this and great support too!

The true strength of File Freedom has to be the wonderful support that the author provides.  If  you have a problem, the developer will probably have sent a response within 24 hours!

But nothing's perfect...

One drawback I found though is that the program is relatively simple; if you want some of the advanced features included in other products, File Freedom may not be for you.  In fact, I still use FileStar at times for a few of these features. 

Still, the kind of support Bruce Henry provides for only Cdn $10 (less than US$7!), compared to FileStar (which sells for about Cdn $80) makes this product well worth looking into.  I encourage you to download a copy today!

-----

* File Freedom v1.5a
by (brhenry@kw.igs.net) Red Paint Software
download from the (http://www.os2ss.com/diskutil/filef15a.zip) OS/2 Supersite (ZIP, 113k)
Registration: US$10.00

-----

(http://www.pr.uoguelph.ca/noah/) Noah Sumner is a member of TeamOS/2 and the Toronto OS/2 Users Group.

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

Java: The Unrealized Future	- by Scott E. Regener

-----

When IBM first announced native support of Java for the OS/2 Desktop, it was hailed as the beginning of true application availability for OS/2 users.  As more and more developers began writing their applications in Java, those programs would immediately be available for the OS/2 community as well.  Since Warp 4 shipped in September, Java's popularity has done nothing but climb.  But as any OS/2 user will tell you, the hype has to live up to the product -- and Java is one case where this hasn't happened.

Applications

The key problem isn't with applets, those Java programs designed to run within an HTML document (even if the applet is the only content in the HTML document).  Even games like Sailor Moon and Yahtzee run fine in OS/2, if provided the necessary horsepower.  The real problem is with applications, Java programs designed and compiled to run without a browser's assistance.

OS/2 runs Java applications natively.  If you compile a special version of the Linux kernel, Linux will run native Java applications.  If Windows 97 delivers on its promise to create a "browser-based" desktop it will also run Java applications without a browser.  For most other operating systems, running Java applications in a virtual machine is more dream than reality.

In the meantime, Java developers have been forced to use nonstandard application loaders to support Java applications on "mainstream" OSs.  It is the addition of these non-Java loaders that makes those Java applications incompatible with OS/2.  The "virtual machine" environment Java programs run in is an integral part of the Java Developer's Kit (JDK).  It is not, however, an integral part of any PC OS, except OS/2.

Recently, (http://www.corel.com/) Corel announced that they're building a new Office suite for Java, and one of their key goals is OS/2 Java compatibility.  This shouldn't be overly surprising since OS/2 has the best Java performance at this point.  Just as developers use the latest and greatest hardware for demonstrations, Corel knows OS/2 is their best bet for demonstrating dazzling speed and reliability.  (No one wants to be faced with a GPF or application error in the middle of a demonstration.)

A recent (http://www.pcmag.com/) PC Magazine article on Internet content agents featured several PointCast-type services.  Most were written for specific operating systems, taking advantage of screen-saver APIs.  There was one, however, that was supposedly written in Java, to take advantage a larger user base.  It is called  (http://www.marimba.com:80/products/index.html) Castanet.  A quick visit to the web site, however, informs users that while the content may be in Java, the application is only supported for specific OSs.  While versions have been "ported" to various platforms, it begs the question, whatever happened to the operating system independence Java is supposed to offer?

Castanet is not the only application in this state, either.  While versions _can_ be compiled for several OSs, this wasn't Sun's goal when they created Java.  If recompiling and tweaking of code is necessary for true Java compatibility, why not write the applications in C or C++?

Development

Until someone releases a full-featured Java IDE for OS/2, Java development is strapped to the command line.  Rumors of Visual Age for Java abound, but the real product isn't here yet.  Even Sun's IDE for Java, (http://www.sun.com/workshop/java/) Workshop, is written _in_ Java, but it isn't supported for OS/2.  How can IBM truly claim Java supremacy without a single development tool?

The real problem with Java on OS/2 is the same problem OS/2 users have had since day one: developer indifference.  Time and time again, the computer industry has made excuses for ignoring OS/2.

No More Excuses!

Java runs better on OS/2 than any other OS.  Java runs faster on OS/2 than any other OS.  Java is embraced by IBM more than by any other OS developer (except Sun).  Even so, the Java revolution is lagging behind the forward-thinking IBM strategy.

For years OS/2 users have complained about IBM's marketing.  Now IBM is finally getting serious about pushing an open platform concept.  Open your e-mail program and write those developers to let them know you do too.  How many Java converts can Sun ignore before it supports its IDE on every Java platform?

Open32 makes porting Windows 95 and NT applications to OS/2 easy.  The JDK makes porting irrelevant.  Existing Java code simply works, without modification.  Now.  It's about time to tell the world  that OS/2 users are tired of waiting for the world to catch up.  There  are no more excuses.

-----

(sregener@us.net) Scott E. Regener, while not supporting OS/2 in a client-server environment during working hours, enjoys programming, writing (fiction and nonfiction), chess, reading and astronomy.

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

the Beta File

-----

Welcome back to the Beta File, your source for the latest breaking news in OS/2 beta development.  Every month we scour the OS/2 world to bring you interesting news of OS/2 software in development.  If you have a product that you're sure is going to be the next killer app, or you want a little free exposure for your beta test (feedback@os2ezine.com) drop us a note!

                  * * *

(nick@secant.com) Nick Knight, author of the award winning e-mail client, MR/2 ICE, is expanding his line of products for OS/2 with the introduction of the MR/2 ICE Newsreader.  This newest product of Knightware Software Company is a DLL-based add on to the MR/2 ICE e-mail client that enables full-featured news reading.  It will allow both on-line, off-line or mixed-mode reading.  The news reader will sport the same interface and feature list as the MR/2 ICE e-mail product.

There is no web site specifically for the beta test of the newsreader at this time but interested surfers can pop over to the (http://nick.secant.com/) Knightware Software Company's home page.  The beta is closed and consists of a small group at this point.  Phase II will be started shortly and will allow a larger group of people to participate though.  The product has been in testing for a month or so, with over 40 testers involved.

At this time there is not yet a firm date of a v1.0 release.  The product is planned to be included as part of the basic MR/2 ICE package and the base price of MR/2 ICE may be increased slightly at release time to reflect the increased functionality.  And it will be shareware, of course.

When asked the motivation for the expansion into the news reader market, Knight said, "We're just looking to take what we've done with the E-Mail side and create a similar newsreader product."  If our readers like the new features half as much as they did the old ones, it is sure to be a winner.

                  * * *

Speaking of news reading, I came across some interesting threads this month in one of the comp.os.os2 groups.  There is a small but vocal group of netizens who have started a thread of discussion about the supposed demise of the Money Tree financial software package in beta development by Mt. Baker Software.

Looking to get to the bottom of this rumour, I gave Bryan Minor, President of Mt. Baker Software a phone call on March 13th to see what he had to say about Money Tree's status.  This was his response:

"[Regarding] the comments about Mt. Baker Software's viability and the prospects of Money Tree, [the people who have commented negatively] are clearly NOT speaking from an informed position.  Here are the facts regarding us and Money Tree:

1. A second Beta of Money Tree will be released within days.  This will most likely be the last private beta.  A public beta will come next, then followed by the general release.  This next private beta will contain all of the following:

o  Ability to import any data through a public REXX API
        (ability to import QIF files is provided)
o  numerous enhancements to Ledgers
        o  transfers
        o  splits
        o  reconciling
        o  full keyboard and menu support
        o  calendar 
        o  calculator
o  ability to produce reports on:
        o  Budget
        o  Net worth
o  Enhancements to "What if?" modules
o  Extensive enhancements to online help

2. We are here for the long haul.  Mt. Baker Software is firmly committed to the OS/2 market and Money Tree.

           - (bminor@Mount-Baker.com) Bryan M. Minor, Ph.D."

It looks like the rumours of Money Tree's demise are very premature indeed.

                  * * *

Those of you who have grown used to using Info-ZIP's zip and unzip but who have longed for that forgotten friend, PKZIP, good news: a new OS/2 version of this old favourite is currently in beta testing.  PKZIP for OS/2 from (http://www.pkware.com/) PKWARE, Inc. is, as you most likely know, a program to create compressed .ZIP archives and .EXE self-extracting files.  What more do I need to say?

This beta test has been ongoing for some time, including 120 beta testers since November 11th of last year.  Unfortunately, PKWARE is not accepting more testers at this time but the ETA of the general availability release is sometime in the mid to late second quarter of 1997.  Not much longer now 'til we can all get a look at the new version.

The price for this combination shareware and commercial product will be US$47 at the time of release.

If you're wondering what features the product will have, one of the beta testers gave us this list:

o  Ability to create self-extracting archives
o  The PKZFIND utility
o  Nice Help System
o  The ability to modify attributes in the Zipfile w/o unzipping it
o  Password protecting
o  Printing files that are compressed
o  Disk Spanning

Sounds good!

                  * * *

If you thought the company that has recently brought us not one, not two, but three ColorWorks plug-ins couldn't possibly have anything else up its sleeve, think again.  Modular Dreams Inc. is currently beta testing their newest stand-alone product, code named M3.

M3 is an image database tool that is ideal for the Internet age.  M3 will feature:

o  A database which allows queries on files by name, keywords, attributes, format, description, image signature and more.

o  An "Image Chooser" which allows rapid separation of good and bad images.  The image chooser will perform actions on files based on how the user selects them.  It will also display images with duplicate names or images which are believed to be too similar by M3 for the user to decide which to keep and which to delete.

o  Browsers to view images in a directory, in virtual directories, or in the database.

o  A powerful expression language, such as: ((*.GIF|*.JPG|*.JPEG)&~*BAD*) for easier access to files.  Syntax will support standard DOS/UNIX characters plus more.

o  Naming of fixed and removable devices.  For example, ZIP: or HD1:.  This will make adding or removing partitions much easier and make users' data network-ready.

o  Naming of media.  For example ZIP disks could be called OldStuff: and NewStuff:.

o  Tools for rapid changes to database information.  For example, if one decides to use DOS drive names in paths, such as I:\IMAGES, one can change the path of all images in I:\IMAGES to J:\IMAGES in one step.

o  Basic cropping/editing functions.

o  Image conversion.  Many popular image formats will be supported for loading and saving (including PNG).  Alpha channels are also supported on formats which allow them and they may optionally be dropped to reduce disk space.

o  A "classic" batch converter.  The Image Chooser can be used as a very powerful batch converter but a classic one will be provided for simpler jobs.

o  Printing features for images and database content.

o  Full support of OS/2 direct manipulation (Drag and Drop).

o  Support for unavailable media/devices.  For example, there is no reason why the user can't open a ZIP disk FRIENDS: and another ZIP disk FAMILY: and move images between them when neither is in the ZIP drive.  M3 will perform the moving of the files when the disk(s) become inserted but until then it will allow them to remain where they are and will direct any database queries to the proper place(s).

Modular Dreams has told us that there will be a web page for the beta test but at the time of this writing it was not yet active.  Look for it in the future at:

(http://www.modulardreams.com/m3.html) http://www.modulardreams.com/m3.html

Testing began on March 3rd and Modular Dreams expects it to last about one month.  The beta will include fixes and suggestions received on the company's previous product, MD+F SX demo which was posted to (http://www.modulardreams.com/) their web site back in 1995, and many enhancements made on that demo code.

The beta is still open so if you're interested, grab the fully functional beta (time expired) from the Modular Dreams web site.  Daily updates are planned (they will usually only include a new executable for faster download).

General availability should be around mid-April and the MSRP of the commercial product is currently set at US$169.

As you can probably guess from the above feature descriptions, a company spokesperson tells us that, "This product is for someone who has ONE very large, chaotic collection of images."  And there are plenty of us in the OS/2 community!

                  * * *

And also in the graphics market this month, Dadaware is just wrapping up its beta test of the newest version of its product formerly named JView Pro.  Now renamed Embellish v2.0, primary developer, V. Joseph Burkley, tells us that Embellish is an image editing program that combines painting, drawing, color editing, text and special effects all into one application.

He's not joking either.  We had a look at an early beta of the product and while it was clearly not finished, it had some impressive features.  Most importantly, it had the feature that we've been wishing for in an OS/2 product for a _long_ time: good text anti-aliasing.

Some other features include:

o  Object Oriented: Every time you edit a photo, a new object is created.  Each object can then be flipped, moved, edited, undergo special effects -- all separately from the rest of the photo.

o  Paint & Draw: Choose 1 of 16 draw/paint tools and 1 of 14 paintable effects to create custom looks.

Tool examples:

    o  airbrush, chalk, clone, eyedropper

Paintable effects examples:

    o  blur, color, emboss, grayscale, smudge

o  File Formats: Supports 14 different file formats including interlaced/transparent GIFs and JPEGs.

o  Special Effects: 22 special effects such as blur, fish eye, swirl and ripple over 50 built-in filters.

o  Web Stuff: Ability to layout image maps, dither GIF photos to a variety of palettes for the best look on various browsers.

o  Other: Slideshow, screen capture tool, batch file conversions.

Debra Gonzalez of Dadaware tells us:

"Embellish has come a long way from the shareware version, JView Pro.  The entire GUI has been redone and cool features have been added.  Dadaware's goal is to provide customers with a fun-to-use, yet powerful program at a good price.

Oh yeah... and we don't charge for tech support."
        
If you are interested in getting in on the tail end of the beta test, Dadaware is always looking for beta testers and always looking for feedback.  Drop by (http://www.dadaware.com/) their web site or contact (joeb@dadaware.com) Joe Burkley or (debig@dadaware.com) Debra Gonzalez and join the approximately 20 other testers that have been banging on Embellish for the past month.

The release date for Embellish v2.0 was originally scheduled for March 17th but this has slipped slightly.  Expect the eventual price to be US$69.99 with a three month promotional pricing of US$39.99.  Beta testers are offered special pricing based on the extent of their
input.  (Contact Dadaware directly for more information.)  Embellish will be a commercial product.

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

Answers from e-Zine!

-----

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

-----

Q -- I recently installed and reinstalled Warp 4.  Now, when I right-click an object and select "Create another" from the pop-up menu, I see multiple choices of "Folder",  "New folder", etc., up to nine times for the same choice.  Can you tell me what causes this and how to fix it?

A -- Actually, this is not necessarily a Warp 4 problem.  We have seen it happen in Warp 3 (and Warp 4) numerous times.

Basically, some WPS classes are getting reregistered and adding identical types to your system.  There are many apps that register their own classes and it would be hard to discern exactly which is causing the problem.  The most thorough way to fix this is to reinstall OS/2 (which we've done numerous times).

An easier, and possibly just as effective, solution is to try running CHECKINI from WPTools v19 which can be found on most file archives including the (http://www.os2ss.com/) OS/2 Supersite.  This utility 'cleans' your INI files and may possibly get rid of these extra classes.

Or you may try a class deregistering utility such as Dereg (which is also freeware and also available on most archive sites including the OS/2 Supersite).  With it you will be able to see a (long) list of all classes registered on your system and hopefully there will be obvious duplicates so you can highlight them and deregister them.  Use caution when deregistering classes however.  Don't carelessly deregister classes you might still need!

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

-----

TIP -- I have run OS/2 in our agency for five or more years since we migrated from DOS.  OS/2 has been a reliable and stable platform, once I learned to handle the hardware (interrupts, IOaddresses, etc.).  We run eight machines.  One is a print/file/CD-ROM  server with three printers attached.  (Some say it can't be done but a SoftIO card from AXXON Computers, Windsor, Ontario makes it a snap).  Another is a fax/accounting machine.  One DOS Gateway runs Lanyon on Lantastic NetBios for connection via X.25 to WORLDSPAN, our Airline Reservation System, and prints our tickets.  All our machines connect via direct modems to other travel suppliers.

Here is a set of instructions developed by myself that has installed Warp 4 from a CD-ROM over a Lantastic Network.  The help desk at IBM doesn't seem to know how to do this: "Do it our way... you don't use LanServer?" etc..  And the cost of reaching Artisoft via long distance is high.

Doing a Remote Install of OS/2 Warp 4 under Lantastic

-----

IBM assumes that everyone that is installing Warp 4 will be doing so on a network that is either running NOVELL or LAN Server.  There is no support in the README files for Lantastic. Experimentation has yielded the following process for me.

1. Create the three (3) installation disks by clicking on the System, Setup, Install/Remove icons.  Select Lantastic and Artisoft Adapters.

2. On the Second Diskette, Disk 1, (Numbered 0,1,2 in IBM-talk) Copy the Lantastic Lines from the Workstation's CONFIG.SYS file.  This assumes that you had Lantastic for OS/2 running under a previous version of OS/2.

LASTDRIVE=Z
SET NWDBPATH=D:\LAN\OS2\NW
DEVICE=D:\LAN\OS2\LANMSGDD.OS2 /I:D:\LAN\OS2
DEVICE=D:\LAN\OS2\PROTMAN.OS2 /I:D:\LAN\OS2
DEVICE=D:\LAN\OS2\NE2000.OS2
DEVICE=D:\LAN\OS2\AI-NDIS.OS2
DEVICE=D:\LAN\OS2\AILANBIO.OS2
DEVICE=D:\LAN\OS2\NETBIOS.OS2
DEVICE=D:\LAN\OS2\LANPDD.OS2
DEVICE=D:\LAN\OS2\LANVDD.OS2
DEVICE=D:\LAN\OS2\IFS2NB.OS2
RUN=D:\LAN\OS2\NETBIND.EXE
RUN=D:\LAN\OS2\LTDAEMON.EXE
IFS=D:\LAN\OS2\LANTASTI.IFS
DEVICE=C:\SRVIFS.SYS
IFS=C:\SRVIFSC.IFS * /T
SET ADAPTER_NIF=NE2000.NIF

3. Remove IBM's lines for network installation using a 'rem' at the start of the line.  My CONFIG.SYS looks like this:

rem *** Start of ThinLAPS additions ***
rem call = netbind.exe
run = lanmsgex.exe     
rem device = lanmsgdd.os2
rem device = protman.os2 /I:A:\
rem device = netbeui.os2
rem device = netbios.os2
rem device = AEXNDIS.OS2
LASTDRIVE=Z
SET NWDBPATH=D:\LAN\OS2\NW
DEVICE=D:\LAN\OS2\LANMSGDD.OS2 /I:D:\LAN\OS2
DEVICE=D:\LAN\OS2\PROTMAN.OS2 /I:D:\LAN\OS2
DEVICE=D:\LAN\OS2\AEXNDIS.OS2       
rem DEVICE=D:\LAN\OS2\NE2000.OS2
DEVICE=D:\LAN\OS2\AI-NDIS.OS2
DEVICE=D:\LAN\OS2\AILANBIO.OS2
DEVICE=D:\LAN\OS2\NETBIOS.OS2
DEVICE=D:\LAN\OS2\LANPDD.OS2
DEVICE=D:\LAN\OS2\LANVDD.OS2
DEVICE=D:\LAN\OS2\IFS2NB.OS2
DEVICE=D:\LAN\OS2\VDM2IFS.OS2
RUN=D:\LAN\OS2\NETBIND.EXE
RUN=D:\LAN\OS2\LTDAEMON.EXE
IFS=D:\LAN\OS2\LANTASTI.IFS /I:D:\lan\os2
rem *** End of ThinLAPS additions ***
rem CALL=A:\SRVATTCH.EXE z: \\JG5MSKH6\CD-ROM
rem DEVICE=A:\SRVIFS.SYS
rem IFS=A:\SRVIFSC.IFS * /T
rem CALL=A:\SRVATTCH.EXE w: \\JG5MSKH6\STATUS
rem RUN=Z:\CID\LOCINSTU\SRVREXX.EXE
libpath=.;\os2\install;\os2\dll;i:\cid\locinstu;
set os2_shell=cdboot.exe
set oemprogram=\ibminst\npconfig.exe
set exitwhendone=1
set ADAPTER_NIF=AEXNDIS.NIF
rem set SRVNAME1=JG5MSKH6
set SAVECONNECT=1

Note that this is a good time to upgrade older Lantastic files with the newer files (check the
dates) from the OS/2 Warp CD-ROM.

4. Do not run the installation program on the 'SERVER' where the CD-ROM is located.  This runs SHIELD.EXE which locks the keyboard and mouse and who knows what else (to protect the install process?).  It is unnecessary and superfluous because you will use Lantastic instead.  Just make sure the SERVER is running and the CD-ROM is in the Drive.

5. Insert the Installation Disks into the Workstation and boot.  When you get to the third disk  (Disk2) do not run the install program when the blue screen comes up.  Select F3 to obtain an OS/2 prompt.  You need to set up Lantastic on the Workstation and connect it to the SERVER with the correct drive mappings.  I have also found that TEDIT use at this time will not run correctly.  You get to the command line of TEDIT and can't exit without a reboot...  and all the preparation goes down the drain!

6. Change to the Directory on your hard-drive where your Lantastic Files are installed.  Start your Lantastic Network:

   NET START 'WORKSTATIONAME'

Note: Popup will not function but we don't need it.

7. Logon to your SERVER:

   NET LOGIN "SERVERNAME''

8. You must now create two logical drives that point to the CD-ROM on the SERVER.  These must use the correct letters that IBM has coded into their installation program, which are W: and Z:

   NET USE W: \\SERVERNAME\CD-ROM
   NET USE  Z: \\SERVERNAME\CD-ROM

9. Type the words NET SHOW to verify that you have logged on and set up the correct drives.  Fix as needed.  When this is done, type EXIT to return to the installation program, INSTAL1.EXE.

10. Follow the usual and too often seen steps of the IBM OS/2 Warp installation process according to your needs easy/advanced and so on...  Take a lunch break for 30 - 50 minutes.

When requested to remove the diskette do so and reboot.  But when the machine comes up with the SELECTIVE INSTALLATION screen, exit to an OS/2 prompt and again go to your LANTASTIC directory to start your network, log in to your server, and direct the drives W: and Z: to the CD-ROM.  (See the above steps)

11. Return to the Desktop and select System, Set-Up, Selective Install, and proceed with the rest of your OS/2 installation process for screens, devices, printers, programs, features and whatever bitmap turns your crank.  Take another break!

The above process has worked for me and is the product of many, many hours of trial and error.  If it doesn't work for you, at least you have a starting point for analysis and correction.  Diligent note taking of your steps and intelligent attention to what error messages tell you, no
matter how obscure they may seem, will get you to a successful installation of OS/2 Warp.  The combination of Warp and Lantastic is FANTASTIC and runs reliably.

(scrutton@mnsi.net) R. Edgar Scrutton
c/o Allison's Travel Agency Ltd.
167 Tecumseh Road West
Windsor, Ontario.  Canada.
N8X 1E8

-----

Q -- Do you have any idea how to reset the WarpCenter back to the way it was when I installed Warp 4?  I really liked having the pull-down menu to start command prompts.  One time, while I was switching resolutions, I rebooted and got a message that the WarpCenter data file was corrupt and was being rebuilt.  It came back with the Command Prompts pull-down menu missing and I have not figured out any way to put them back.

A -- The WarpCenter is object oriented so all you need to do to add the Command Prompts folder (or any  other object) to it is drag the folder (usually found in your OS/2 System folder) to a blank area on the WarpCenter, somewhere between the 'Select object tray options' icon (the little blue 'bar' made up of three squares) and the 'Assistance Center' icon.

A shadow of the object you drag to the blank area will appear on the WarpCenter (the original stays where it was).  Now when you click this shadow of the Command Prompts folder on the WarpCenter, you will get the pull-down list of command prompts again.

If there is no empty room between these two icons you may need to make another 'tray'.  To do this, right click on the WarpCenter, select 'Add tray' and enter a name in the dialog.  You will now have a blank area to drag objects to.

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

-----

TIP -- Here is a nifty trick for really making the trays in WarpCenter helpful.  Rather than using the main Drives icon, open it as an icon view and drag a copy of each drive icon to the WarpCenter.  Then you're only one click from opening any drive as a tree, or two clicks from opening them in details or icon views.  I have trays for all my major categories like System, Business Apps, Internet, Multimedia, Graphics, Development, etc..

          - (forensic@internorth.com) Bill Easley

-----

Q -- I am running Warp 4 on a 486/66 with 16MB and a Trident 8900c 1MB SVGA card at a resolution of 800x600x256.  Whenever I use Netscape Navigator/2, it looks fine itself, but it changes my system palette to some strange colors.  What's going on, and can it be fixed?

A -- The problem is a combination of your 256 colour resolution and OS/2 Warp's "palette manager".  In the Netscape Navigator "Options" menu, choose "General Preferences..." and then select the "Colors" tab.  There is a "Palette aware" checkbox that you should uncheck.  From the Netscape Navigator on-line help:

"Palette aware  When using a display driver that only supports 256 colors check this if you wish to use the OS/2 palette manager.  Using the OS/2 palette manager will result in more accurate colors but it may cause your desktop and other applications to change color when Navigator starts and when you change focus. Turning off palette manager will eliminate the color changes but will result in less accurate colors in images displayed by Navigator. By default the box is checked to ensure Navigator displays the image as accurately as possible. This option has no effect on systems with more than 256 colors or systems running the VGA driver."

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

-----

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

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

Chris' ColorWorks Powertips	- by Chris Wenham

-----

Feathers and Outlines

This month I've been playing with the MD+F Renders plug-ins and I have learned a few neat tricks.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to include these tricks in this column.  Expect a full review of the product and an appearance in this column soon!

Q&A Center

""I'm very impressed with my purchase of ColorWorks V2, and I read the Powertips in every issue!  However, sometimes it annoys me trying to figure out how to do "simple" things.  One example is the "feather" option.  Can you point me in the right direction?""

          - (anders_gjerlov@ibm.net) Anders Gjerlov

In ColorWorks the "feather" option's closest counterpart is the "Soften Edges" option found in the Edit.Floating Merge Control dialog.

Say we have a starting image we want to clip out and paste into another.  After masking, floating, and dragging the image to our destination canvas, we go to Edit.Floating Merge Control and set the Edges to a softness factor of 1 or more.  After clicking "OK" we should see the edges of the floating image softened, or "feathered" (if you don't, just move the floating image around a pixel or two to "remind" ColorWorks to paint it again).

I've noticed a bug in ColorWorks concerning the edge softening effect.  On irregular shapes it can miss feathering the very top and bottom of the floating image after it has been pasted.  To fix this, pick a brush of appropriate thickness and use the line tool to touch-up the missed areas with one of the smoothing labs switched on (Effects.Filters Lab.Smoothing Lab).

""I need to have a shape which can be defined with an image mask develop a buffer 1 pixel wide of a fixed color.  This is analogous to the old grade school drawing project of writing your name and then make rings around the letters using different colored crayons.""

          - (doug@hotrocks.msfc.nasa.gov) Doug Rickman

This can be done by using the Noise Reduction Lab in the _Effects.Filter Lab_ menu.

1. Start with the shape you want to work with, mask it, float it, and drag the floating image onto the ColorWorks Desktop to make a quick temporary copy of your original.

2. Use Edit.Show Mask.Image Mask to show your original image mask again, then use Edit.Mask Edit Options.Invert Mask to invert it.

3. Now save this inverted mask as the protection mask (using Edit.Save Mask.Protection Mask), meaning that you're now protecting all of the areas _outside_ of your shape.

4. Make sure the protection mask is then switched on with Options.Protection Mask, pick the color you want to use for the outline and apply it to the canvas with the full canvas tool, so your shape is now completely filled with the outline color.

5. Switch off the protection mask (select Edit.Save Mask.Protection Mask again) and go to Effects.Filter Lab.Noise Reduction Lab.  Pick "Minimum" from the drop down list box, click "OK" and apply the effect to the canvas with the full canvas tool.  You'll notice that the whole shape has now fattened by about one pixel.

6. To finish up, go back to the temporary canvas you made and mask the original image, float it, and drag it over your fattened image.  Position it carefully and paste.

Extra tip: If this 'buffer' is still not thick enough you can make it thicker yet in a single step.  Leave the Noise Reduction Lab switched on in the Effects menu and select the paint can tool.  Make sure you're switched out of mask mode (right-click once on the mask icon) and then apply the paint can to any empty space outside of your shape.  ColorWorks will thicken all the lines outside the shape by another pixel for each time you click on the canvas with the paint can -- and always of that same fixed color you wanted.

-----

(http://www.spectra.net/~fox/) Chris Wenham is a Team OS/2er in Binghamton, NY with a catchy-titled company -- (http://www.spectra.net/~pendulum/webworks/) Wenham's Web Works. He has written comedy, sci-fi, HTML, Pascal, C++ and now writes software reviews.

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

Object Desktop Tips	- by Alexander Antoniades

-----

Many people buy Object Desktop 1.5x specifically for the backup and recovery features such as Object Package and Desktop Backup Advisor.  However, when the moment of truth comes and their Workplace Shell is hanging on boot-up (or the ever-popular 'can't find the Desktop' problem) there is often a moment of realization that Object Desktop's healing powers are mostly contingent on having a functioning Workplace Shell.

But, this isn't the end of the world.  In most cases you not only can get back to a fully functional Workplace Shell, if you have a recent Object Package of it, you can actually have a better shell than the one you had before your system was trashed.

The first thing to do, before your system is damaged, is to use Object Package to make a backup of your Desktop.  This can be done manually by first creating an empty Object Package file (either by dragging a template or selecting 'Create Another...' from an existing Object Package file), then double clicking on it and agreeing to back up the current Desktop.  Or it can be done automatically using Object Desktop Professional's Desktop Backup Advisor, which will schedule a routine backup using Object Scheduler.

Now that you have an up-to-date backup of your Desktop, go ahead and toast it!  Do something foolish like installing some alpha Workplace Shell modifier from Hobbes, then hit the power switch to shut down your computer.  Or just do some normal thing that you've done a thousand times before that, out of the blue, causes your computer to hang when PM (better known as Presentation Manager, the Workplace Shell's subsystem) starts.

OK, now that you've done that and you're reading this article using MORE, here's what you have to do to make your system usable.  For starters, when OS/2 starts to load press ALT-F1 and then F2 to go a command line session.

Unfortunately, PM isn't started or loaded at this point so there's not much you can do to restore your Desktop and you can't access the graphical programs you're probably used to working with.  At this point, you should be in the root directory of your boot drive.  Type

TEDIT CONFIG.SYS

to bring up OS/2's arcane, but useful text editor with your CONFIG.SYS file loaded in it.

Once the editor is loaded press ESC to allow your cursor to move around on the screen and find the statement

SET RUNWORKPLACE=X:\OS2\PMSHELL.EXE

(where x: is your OS/2 drive).  Now put a 'REM' in front of that statement to deactivate it, and add the line

SET RUNWORKPLACE=X:\OS2\CMD.EXE

(again, x: is your OS/2 boot drive) underneath it.  Press F2 to save and F3 to quit.  These changes tell your system to load the PM subsystem, but stop before the Workplace Shell is loaded and go to a command prompt.  At this point you should reboot your system, using whatever key combination you usually use to do this (usually Ctrl-Alt-Del).

Now let your system start normally.  It should boot to a graphical screen with a command window loaded in the middle of it.  From this command window type NEWDESK and press ENTER.  That will load Object Desktop's program to reset the contents of your Workplace Shell.

Follow the prompts carefully through this procedure and everything will be fine, but keep in mind a few pieces of information.  First, your Desktop directory is usually a directory called (appropriately enough) 'Desktop' that's located on your OS/2 boot drive.  Next, you need to keep the class registration table.  And finally, NEWDESK will delete that directory in the restoration of your Desktop.  This last piece of information is important because any files that are in that directory will be lost forever.  You should only have shadows of other folders that contain actual files anyway, but if you're not sure, quit out of NEWDESK and change directory (cd) to the Desktop directory (/Desktop) and look around to make sure.

Once 'NEWDESK' has recreated your Workplace Shell, you should reedit your CONFIG.SYS (you can use the System Editor now that PM is running) by typing E CONFIG.SYS from the command line.  Remove the SET RUNWORKPLACE=...CMD.EXE and unREM the SET RUNWORKPLACE=...PMSHELL.EXE line, then reboot.

When your system reboots it will be with a default Workplace Shell, but all your CONFIG.SYS statements are obviously still intact.  Now go to wherever it is that you stored the Object Package file of your Desktop and double click on it to restore your old Desktop.

You may come across some classes that you can't register, these are more than likely residue from old components that were removed, simply ignore them for now and if you run into problems restore them later with the update command.

Happy exploring!


Submit your tips today!

There's no reason why I should have all the fun.  If you know an Object Desktop tip that you think would help others, please (sander@stardock.com) send it to me and I'll put in a future column.

-----

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

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

The Need For Speed	- by Jon Cochran

-----

Is it just me, or does MMOS/2 still feel like a tacked on afterthought?  Case in point: changing a display driver is a relatively simple operation (reset to VGA, install the new driver); adding a new network card is also relatively easy; changing a sound card is roughly as pleasant as sticking your head up against a belt-sander.

The problem with installing any kind of multimedia device in OS/2 is that the MMOS/2 system keeps a very detailed record of what multimedia adapters are in your system, and when you add a new one it doesn't delete the old record.  So, while a normal MMPM2.INI may have a line that looks like:

CDaudio=IBMCD010_1

if you change your CD-ROM drive, you may get a line that looks like the following:

CDaudio=IBMCD010_1,IBMCD020_1

What's the problem?  Careful mucking and tugging of the mmpm2.ini file will reveal the following:

[IBMCD010_1]
 VERSIONNUMBER=1
 PRODUCTINFO=DEFAULT
 MCDDRIVER=CDAUDIO
 VSDDRIVER=GENCDVSD
 PDDNAME=CD-ROM
 MCDTABLE=MDM
 RESOURCENAME=D:
 DEVICEFLAG=1
 DEVICETYPE=3
 SHARETYPE=2
 RESOURCEUNITS=1
 RESOURCECLASSES=1,1
 PARMSTRING=Drive=D,Model=DEFAULT DEFAULT1
 CONNECTORS=1,6,HEADPHONE,1
 ALIASNAME=Compact Disc
[defaultnames]
 CDaudio=IBMCD010_1
[IBMCD020_1]
 VERSIONNUMBER=1
 PRODUCTINFO=SONY
 MCDDRIVER=CDAUDIO
 VSDDRIVER=GENCDVSD
 PDDNAME=CD-ROM
 MCDTABLE=MDM
 RESOURCENAME=D:
 DEVICEFLAG=1
 DEVICETYPE=3
 SHARETYPE=2
 RESOURCEUNITS=1
 RESOURCECLASSES=1,1
 PARMSTRING=Drive=D,Model=SONY    CD-ROM CDU55E
 CONNECTORS=2,6,HEADPHONE,1,2,,0
 ALIASNAME=CDaudio02

As you may be able to guess by this point, when the new CD-ROM was added to this particular system (it was the Sony CDU55E being added), the MMPM/2 installation program just added the new CD-ROM to its .INI file, neglected to remove the old one, and doubled up on the CDAUDIO value.  Is this bad?  Probably.  It can, and will, cause headaches when you add sound adapters (as it has for me).

So what's an OS/2 user to do?  Well, the absolute easiest way to add a new sound card is to simply install it, boot OS/2, back up your MMPM2.INI file, delete the MMPM2.INI file (making sure you still have a backup) and running Selective Install.  This method usually works very well, and you don't have to go through the headaches of uninstalling multimedia support (which doesn't work very well at all).

If you're adding a CD-ROM, you could add the new drive through Selective Install (or whatever installation program you're required to run) and manually edit the MMPM2.INI file, removing all the old references.  Which is what I did (and everything still works).

Go now, and let the brave among you plumb the depths of your MMPM2.INI file.  If you've done a lot of configuring and re-configuring, you may be a bit shocked.  Or scared.

-----

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

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

the REXX Files	- by Dr. Dirk Terrell

-----

I had a discussion with someone this month about using REXX to composite HTML files instead of using Server-Side Includes (SSI) on an HTTP server.  SSI provides some very useful capabilities, and in some cases it is the only way to accomplish a given task.  However, it can greatly decrease the performance of a server if each file has to be scanned before sending it.  Basically, SSI works by scanning an HTML file for special commands before sending it to the requesting web browser.

One common example of using SSI is the inclusion of header and footer text on all pages of a web site.  In this particular case, it might make more sense to use REXX to composite the HTML files together before placing them on the server.  Let's look at an implementation of an HTML preprocessor written in REXX.  (Of course, this could be used for any text file, not just HTML.)

Basically what we want to do is embed special markers in a text file that tell our preprocessor what to do.  For HTML, an obvious choice would be to use HTML comment tags with the preprocessor commands inside them.  Recall that an HTML comment tag is of the form:

<!--- some text --->

So let's use HTML comments to embed a preprocessor command to include a file at the location of the command.  For clarity, let's call the file with the preprocessor commands in it the source file and the processed file to be created the target file.  The source file might look like this:

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Sample HTML File</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY> 
<!--- include header.src --->
On this page you will find links to other web sites containing OS/2 information...
<!--- include footer.src ---> 
</BODY>
</HTML>

In this file, we want the line

<!--- include header.src --->

to be replaced with the contents of the file header.src and the line

<!--- include footer.src --->

to be replaced with the contents of the file footer.src.

The first thing to do is read the contents of our target file into a variable.  Obviously, you don't want to do that with very large (multi-megabyte) files, but HTML files are generally small enough that reading the entire contents of the file into memory poses no problems.  Let's pass the source and target file names to the program on the command line and use PARSE ARG to retrieve them:

Parse Arg SourceFile Targetfile

Now that we know the name of the target file, we read its contents using the CHARIN function:

NChars=Chars(SourceFile)
SourceText=Charin(SourceFile,1,NChars)
rc=Stream(SourceFile,"C","Close")

The variable NChars is the number of bytes contained in the source file, which is retrieved with the CHARS function.  We need to know the number of bytes to tell the CHARIN function to read, and since we want to read the entire file, we use the result of CHARS as input to CHARIN.

The second parameter in the CHARIN function tells it where in the file (which byte number) to begin reading.  We use 1 to start at the beginning of the file.

The third line closes the source file since we are now finished with it.  It is always a good habit to close a file as soon as possible to free up its file handle since a limited number of file handles are available.  If you find yourself reading lots of files in a REXX program and it is mysteriously crashing after the first few, chances are you are forgetting to close files and thus running out of file handles.

So now we have the contents of the source file in memory in the variable SourceText.  The next step is to scan the contents for preprocessor commands.  The REXX function for this job is POS which returns the location of one string within another.  The calling form is:

POS(target,source,start)

where target is the string we are looking for, source is the string that may or may not contain target, and start is the position in source to begin the search.  Since there may be multiple preprocessor commands in the file, we will have to use POS several times until we find them all.  When we begin, we obviously want start to be 1 (i.e., start at the beginning of source).  POS will return either a 0 (target was not found in source) or a number indicating the byte where target first appears in source.  Here is the loop that searches for all occurrences of a preprocessor include command:

N=Pos("<!--- include",SourceText,1)
Do While N<>0
   End=Pos(">",SourceText,N) /* The end of the include tag */
   If SubStr(SourceText,End+1,2)=crlf then /* Eliminates extra CR/LF */
      End=End+2
   FirstPart=SubStr(SourceText,1,N-1) /* The text up to the include tag */
   LastPart=SubStr(SourceText,End+1)  /* The text after the include tag */
   IncludeTag=SubStr(SourceText,N,End-N+1)
   Parse Var IncludeTag . "include" IncludeFile "--->"
   IncludeFile=Strip(IncludeFile) /* Strip any leading/trailing spaces */
   NChars=Chars(IncludeFile)
   IncludeText=Charin(IncludeFile,1,NChars) /* Read in the include file */
   rc=Stream(IncludeFile,"C","Close")
   SourceText=FirstPart||IncludeText||LastPart /* Put all of the pieces together */
   Drop FirstPart LastPart IncludeText /* Don't need these anymore so clear them */
   N=Pos("<!--- include",SourceText,1)
End

Now all that's left to do is write out the processed file:

rc=SysFileDelete(TargetFile) /* Make sure that the output file does not exist */
rc=Charout(TargetFile,SourceText) /* Write out the output file */
rc=Stream(TargetFile,"C","Close") /* Close the output file */

As usual, there are many things that could be added such as error checking (does the indicated include or source file exist?) but this is enough to get you started.  A nice generalization of the program would be to search for a list of commands rather than just include.  Another would be to process all source files in a directory (e.g. search for all files ending in .src and process them.

The (http://www.os2ezine.com/rexxpp.zip) sample file (ZIP, 2k) includes the above code and some small text files to test it on.  Run it by typing:

rexpp source.src source.htm

and it will process the file source.src, inserting header.src and footer.src and creating the output file source.htm.  (terrell@falcon-net.com) Let me know if you create any useful variations of this program.

-----

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

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

How Do I?	- by Eric Slaats

-----

Hi Again.  I had a not so swell month.  I got a new machine and I seem to have lost the wrestling match I'm having with it.  This means I didn't have that much time for fun stuff.

This new machine sounds good when you hear its features: a Pentium Pro 200 with 64 Mb and 3Gb hard disk.  Sounds good, eh?  Now the problem: the video card.  It's a Virge3d with 4 Mb.  Previously, I used a Diamond Stealth pro on my 486DX2 with great results but the Virge drivers are refusing to work on the resolution I'm used to.

The bugs are really 'not of this earth'.  Drag and drop works with one item; if I try to drag two items, it works within a folder but when I go over the Desktop, Lockup; when the folder is maximized, lockup.  VIEW.EXE works fine, except when the cursor keys are used, which produces a lockup.  When an OS/2 VIO window is opened, I can't drag anything because, yes, a lockup.  The MLE control works perfectly, unless I try to select anything, because...

The strange thing is that at 1024x768 resolution most of these bugs don't occur.  This means I'm now typing this article on a 640x480x16 (Grunt) screen.  This will probably be the last time I ever try a Virge card.  To make matters worse, the hard disk in this new machine isn't exactly cooperating either.  Many black screens because stuff can't be found, etc.  Well, enough whining, let's get down to business.  I'll let you know this fight turned out next month.

Unexploited Features

OS/2 is an amazing operating system.  It has a lot of features that are very attractive like Drag-n-Drop, presentation parameters, Profiles etc.  What always amazes me though, is that there aren't many programs really making use of all these goodies.  Take a simple thing like saving the main window position and the presentation parameters used by that window.  A lot of applications I have tried don't use these OS/2 goodies at all.  OS/2 Works in the BonusPak for example: no presentation parameter support, no window position saving, no scalable status bar, etc.  This is all the more amazing because these features are very easy to implement.

Don't get me wrong here, implementing full drag-n-drop facilities (as in Smalled or as with DragText) isn't simple.  It's very hard!  But, implementing basic stuff like saving a window position with presentation parameters is very easy and doesn't take that much work.  That's exactly what we're starting to investigate this month.

A number of terms are mentioned above that may need explaining.  So before we get into the programming stuff we'll take a look at what these terms mean.

Presentation parameters.  I love them!  PPs are a fantastic way to change (and remember) information on colors and fonts for virtually every part of your application.  Everyone who uses OS/2 knows about them but probably won't recognize them under the name 'presentation parameters'.  PPs are very easy to apply, simply use the font or color palettes in the System Setup folder and drop a font or color on the area you wish to change.  We'll take a look at how to save the PP information in a moment.

Profiles.  This is another feature of OS/2 everyone uses whether they want to or not.  Everything you do in your system, like changing colors, changing the position of windows or icons, etc.,  gets recorded.  This way OS/2 can restore all your settings when you restart the system.  OS/2 uses two profiles, OS2.INI for user settings (we're going to use this one too) and the OS2SYS.INI for system settings.

The OS/2 profile can be compared to the SYSTEM.INI file in Windows.  However, the OS/2 version of the profile is a binary database and is far superior to the Windows version.

Besides these two INI files, it is also possible to use a private profile.  (We'll delve into that another time.)

Now, after that rather long introduction, what are we going to do this month?  We'll add a feature to our (http://www.os2ezine.com/sample6.zip) simple program (ZIP, 14.5k) that will save the window position and all the color and font information that is added by using PPs.  Because a lot of people don't like the fact that programs mess with their OS2.INI file, we'll also add a menu option to remove this info from the OS2.INI file.

What happens when a program is closed?

Saving window size and position information as well as PP information is best done when closing an application.  This means we don't have to act on every change to a window's settings, we simply save everything on the event of closing the application.  So let's find out what happens when a program is closed.

There are a number of messages that play a role in shutting down an application.  Of course there is the WM_QUIT message (this is reviewed in more depth in an earlier article).  This message isn't very convenient to use to handle last minute stuff because it is this message that shuts the message queue for the application down.

There is also the WM_CLOSE message.  This message is sent by the PM when a user selects the 'Close' menu item from the System Menu or double clicks the System Menu icon.  The default window procedure (WinDefWindowProc) reacts to this message by posting a WM_QUIT, so this also closes the application.  However, we can't rely on WM_CLOSE to always happen on the event of shutting down an application (a WM_QUIT can be posted by another action).

So what are we looking for?  There is another message that is sent by the PM to an application just before it shuts down.  This is the WM_SAVEAPPLICATION message (a convenient name).  It is this message that is made to use for saving the state of the application and indeed, it's this message we will use in our next example.

The developers of OS/2 2.0 added two functions that really make it a breeze to save and restore the current status of the frame window.  These are the functions WinStoreWindowPos and WinRestoreWindowPos.  These functions save the size and place information as well as the PP information of all the frame controls.  (Note: when controls like a status bar are added, it pays to make them frame controls because this way you won't have to worry about saving the font, color, etc. separately.  We will delve into that some other time.)

Let's take a look at WinStoreWindowPos first.  The drawback of these functions is that they save their information in the OS2.INI file.  As I mentioned above, not everyone likes this!  The WinStoreWindowPos function takes three parameters:

PSZ     pAppName;  // String which contains application name.
PSZ     pKeyName;  // String which contains the key name.  
HWND    hwnd;      // Window handle of the window to save.
 
rc = WinRestoreWindowPos(pAppName, pKeyName, hwnd);

To understand these parameters, we need to know a little about profiles.  Profiles are binary databases that handle information in two levels.  The highest level is the Application level.  Under the Application level, keys can be created and data can be assigned to every key.  This can be anything from simple strings or a simple integer to very complex structures.

The WinStoreWindowPos function only needs to know the Application name and the key name for the data in the OS2.INI file.  Normally, we assign names for these with 'defines' in the header file.  This way it's easier to keep track of which names are used.  Extracting of values from the frame window, is handles completely by WinStoreWindowPos.  So the action we take at the WM_SAVEWINDOWPOS is really quite simple.

// Piece in the Sample6.h file

#define APPNAME "Sample6"
#define WINPOS  "Sample6WinPos"

//----------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Save the window size and position on exit
//----------------------------------------------------------------------------
case WM_SAVEAPPLICATION:
        {
        WinStoreWindowPos(APPNAME, WINPOS,
                                   WinQueryWindow(hwnd, QW_PARENT));
        }
break;

Looks simple, right?  Well, that's all there is to it!  There's one thing that needs a little explanation though, the line WinQueryWindow(hwnd, QW_PARENT)).  This is the window handle the function needs to store the data of the frame window.  With this call we ask the Client window what the handle of the parent (the frame) is.

Now for restoring the window data.  We want to do this when we are sure the frame window is created.  This code is also very simple:

WinRestoreWindowPos(APPNAME,       // Restore size/place and PP fromOS2.INI
                                WINPOS,        // 
                                hwndFrame))    //

There are a few pitfalls here though.  The first time the program is started, there is no entry in the OS2.INI file.  This means there is no information present to put the window in a certain location.

No problem, we've got the FCF_SHELLPOSITION flag defined as a window creation flag.  And indeed, the first time the program is run, this takes care of the sizing and positioning of the window.

However, if there _is_ an entry in the OS2.INI, the FCF_SHELLPOSITION flag causes the window first to be shown in the size and place determined by the PM and then flashes it to the size stored from the previous session.  This isn't exactly elegant.  So what do we do?  We need to set the window size and position ourselves if the WinRestoreWindowPos call fails.  Luckily, this function returns a value to determine if it successfully found and used size/position/pp values.  If this is not the case, we've got to call the WinSetWindowPos function with a size and place explicitly listed.  The code to handle this looks like this:

//-------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Restore size/place and PP fromOS2.INI
//-------------------------------------------------------------------------
if (!WinRestoreWindowPos(APPNAME, WINPOS, hwndFrame))
     {
     WinSetWindowPos(hwndFrame,
                     NULLHANDLE,
                     10,10,550,300,
                     SWP_ACTIVATE| SWP_MOVE| SWP_SIZE |SWP_SHOW);
     }

To see how this works, open the window, resize and replace it and drop colors and fonts on the titlebar and menu (remember that activated and deactivated windows can have a different titlebar color).  You may even want to change the border color this way.  Close the window and open it again and observe the results.  (Note that the client window area is not accepting PP drops.)

Now for the last item in this article.  It would be nice to remove the entry sample6.exe puts in the OS2.INI file.  This can be done with one of the profile API calls built into OS/2.  The PrfWriteProfileData function can be used to put data in a profile, but also to remove data from a profile.  Without going into detail about this right now (I will some other time), I'll just show you the function that will take care of business.  To make this accessible, there is just one menu entry.  It calls the following function:

PrfWriteProfileData(HINI_USERPROFILE, APPNAME, NULL, NULL, 0);

This will effectively remove the entry from the OS2.INI file.  However, we're not out of the woods yet!  Because the program is still active, closing it will activate the WM_SAVEAPPLICATION event and thus the information will get saved again.  To fix this for the sample, I used a  rather inelegant global boolean to switch the save status.  Once the menu gets clicked, the application will close and because of the status of the boolean (bSave), no info will be saved.  Check out the sample code to see how this is done.

Concluding Notes

This month's column described one of the things I like best.  Applications that remember what users are doing.  I hope I've showed you how easy the basics are.  Also, remember that people like to keep their OS2.INI clean so you might think twice about using it.  In my opinion though, one of the reasons for using the OS2.INI file is that it's very fast.  The OS2.INI info is likely to already be sitting in memory.  That's one of the reasons programs like Smalled use the OS2.INI, to ensure a fast startup.  There are some programs available that let you examine the OS2.INI file.  For example the Initor (2.0) by Jobst Schmalenbach does a very nice job.  Check it out.

'Til next month, Bye.

-----

(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.

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

An IRC Primer	- by Chris Wenham

-----

The Internet Relay Chat networks have become THE place to chat on the Internet.  While commercial interests have tried to take a slice of the on-line chat pie using virtual worlds and avatars and 3D VRML and other wizardry, plain old free and anarchistic IRC is still what draws the masses.

To get into the world of IRC all you need is a client and an Internet connection.  The client connects to a server that is usually part of a larger network of servers all hooked together to provide the same chat areas, or 'channels', with the same conversations on them to everybody within the same network.  That is, if servers A, B and C are all hooked together in the same network then you can chat with anyone connected to any of those three servers as long as you are connected too.  A few popular networks are Efnet, Undernet and Dalnet. 

The purpose of grouping servers together like this is that if any of them get overloaded, you can simply join the next one down the line and still be able to chat to the same people.  It's also intended so that you can log on to a server that's closest to you physically, allowing chatters to bypass the slowdowns that might come from passing through too many routers or across transatlantic lines.

Terminology

IRC has a lingo all its own, some of which you might hear cropping up in conversations on or about IRC every now and then.  Here's a rundown of the common terms and what they mean.

Nicks

A 'Nick' or 'Nickname' is the short name a person picks to represent him or herself to everyone else on IRC.  Most networks restrict this nickname to 9 characters or less.  It can be anything you like as long as it's not already in use by someone else.  It can be something like "Bob" or "Joe" or "Zapper5" or "SuperDude" or even weirder than that (and they _do_ get weird).

Channels

A channel is what might be called a "room" in other chat schemes like America Online's.  It's the place where conversation occurs.  Each channel is usually dedicated to talk about a certain topic such as OS/2 or movies or music or whatever; some are general-chat type places where anything goes.  A channel name always begins with a pound sign (#) which is used to differentiate between a channel and a nick, since some IRC commands can take either as a parameter.

For example, "/ctcp #OS/2 VERSION" will send a request to the everyone on the channel #OS/2 to identify what version of their client they are using. "/ctcp Bob VERSION" will send the same request to just "Bob" and nobody else.  It would mix things up a bit if there was a channel by the name of "Bob" too and there wasn't anything to tell the IRC client which one you were referring to.

The other way to prefix a channel is with ampersand (&).  You'll rarely see this.  If '#' is the prefix for channels that can be seen across the whole network (everyone on servers A, B and C) then '&' is used to mark a channel that can only be seen and joined by users who are on the same server as the one the channel was created on.  It's a local channel, in other words, rather than a global one.

So if someone on server A created "&talk" then only other users of server A could see and join it.  Channels like this are usually used by administrators who share the job of maintaining a server with others and want to talk about it without outside interference.

You can create your own channels if you like.  If a channel doesn't already exist just "/join" it as if it did and it will be created automatically for you by the server.  You will also be given "ops", or "Operator privileges", which allow you to maintain the channel.  (This is described below.)

"Ops" 

"Ops" refers to the permission to maintain the channel you're on.  This permission is granted automatically to the first person who enters a channel and it is then that person's responsibility to grant "ops" to other trusted members and use them to regulate the channel as they please.  With "ops" one can set the modes of a channel (to make it invite-only or secret for example), make it a moderated channel and give "voices" to other members, or kick out rude members and ban them if they become a persistent nuisance.  A channel operator is usually marked by the '@' character next to his or her nick.  You don't need to specify this '@' character when sending messages to operators though.

IRCOps

If "ops" are the local police for each channel on IRC, then IRCOps are the FBI.  These are dudes with a god complex and aren't ashamed to admit it.  They have special privileges that go beyond regular channel maintenance and extend into the realm of server and network maintenance too.  They can connect and disconnect servers from one another, "/kill" users right off a network and, depending on the kind of software being run on the server, they can even see "secure" channels and join invite-only channels without needing an invitation first.

Just to be clear, IRCops have a lot of power but generally they won't use it casually.  Where a regular Op can kick you off a channel, leaving you still connected to the server and joined to any other channels you had open, IRCOps can boot you clean off the server and out of every channel you had joined, even if you're not using the same server the IRCop is.  For this reason they won't settle any petty squabbles or takeovers for you, they only deal with real troublemakers.

Lag

Lag is the condition when it takes a long time for your messages to reach someone else or the channel in general.  This is caused by backlogs of messages that are coming in too fast for the server or protocol to handle, as well as deteriorating line conditions.  Lag isn't usually much (only a couple of seconds) but on the big networks it can be as bad as a minute or even up to half an hour.  There isn't much you can do about it except to wait it out and let the servers gradually catch up to each other and get properly synchronized again.

Splits (Netsplits)

Netsplits are caused when one server on a network loses contact with another and everyone on either side of the break seems to disappear from the other.  You may suddenly see a mass of people leave a channel with the message "(irc.texas.net <-> irc.neosoft.com)" or similar.  (The names will be of the two servers that lost contact with each other.)  Those people haven't been kicked off, they're still connected and from their point of view it was you who left suddenly (usually with a lot of other people on your side of the split).

These splits are often healed within a minute or two, longer if network conditions are adverse.

It's more-or-less consensus that lag and splits are caused by the IRC protocol's inability to handle large amounts of traffic and not because any server "just plain sucks".  Networks the size of Efnet weren't foreseen when the standard was drawn up, which is one reason smaller networks got started -- to provide an environment less noisy and without so much lag or splitting.  Lag and splits are still inevitable evils, though no matter what network you use.  To paraphrase Kurt Godel: "It doesn't matter how well you build it, there's always some way to break it."

Actions

""Chris loads a teaspoon with pudding and flicks it at Trevor for being silly""

Actions look just like the above.  You "perform" them by typing "/me" followed by the action you want to do.  ("/act" may also work, depending on the client. It's purely whimsical.)  Some badly written clients don't always support actions.

DCC

DCC is short for Direct Client to Client and is a means for both transferring files and chatting from one nick to the other.  Someone can "DCC send" you a file and you can "DCC get" it.  Usually this is done by typing "/dcc send <nick> filename.zip" to send and "/dcc get <nick>" to receive.

A DCC chat is different from the standard method of using the "/msg" command or query windows to talk with someone in that it connects you directly to their client and computer rather than passing the messages through the IRC server first.  The advantage of this is that the connection doesn't suffer from lag delays and doesn't rely on your connection to the IRC server.  File transfers benefit from the same advantages; you can actually disconnect or change your server without breaking the file transfer.  (However there are some poorly written clients which will do just that.)

CTCP

Stands for Client To Client Protocol.  It is a means of sending technical messages and requests back and forth between clients and is usually handled in the background.  One such popular CTCP request is PING, which is used to measure the lag between users.  Another is VERSION, which elicits your client to automatically return its name and version.  A few more are SOUND (for sending sound effects, usually followed by the name of a .wav file), FINGER and TIME.

XDCC

Stands for eXtended DCC.  This can describe anything from a menuing system that allows you to request another user's client to send files to you automatically, or enhancements to your own client's DCC handling such as the ability to preview picture files as they're being sent to you.

Bots

Short for "Robots", these are automated programs that serve various duties on channels and networks.  Some are used to protect channels and prevent takeovers, others dispense useful information such as the excellent "OS/2Bot" -- a REXX bot found on the channel #OS/2 on Efnet.  Sometimes these Bots perform even more far-reaching services such as the "Nickserv" and "Chanserv" bots found on Dalnet, which are used for reserving your favorite nick and channel.  Many servers will not allow you to run your own bot, however, since more times than not they cause more harm than good -- being used to assist channel takeovers rather than protect against them.  Some of the nasty bots you might hear about are "eggdrop" bots.

Takeovers

Takeovers are malicious attacks where a user tries to gain control of a channel by stealing "ops" and kicking everyone out.  People do this to be a nuisance and for the thrill of it.  These are also the same people who read Cyberpunk novels and fantasize about, "jacking into the neural net."  If their skin had not long ago turned the same color as their wallpaper, they could get a job instead of planning takeovers.

ROTFL

Rolling On The Floor Laughing.  Also look out for "LOL" which is Laughing Out Loud.

AFK

Away From Keyboard.  Some people use the command "/away" on their client, which automatically returns a notice to others whenever messages are received or when others ping them or check their ID with a "/whois".

-----

(http://www.spectra.net/~fox/) Chris Wenham is a Team OS/2er in Binghamton, NY with a catchy-titled company -- (http://www.spectra.net/~pendulum/webworks/) Wenham's Web Works. He has written comedy, sci-fi, HTML, Pascal, C++ and now writes software reviews.

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

A Brief Summary of IRC Networks	- by Chris Wenham

-----

The main problem with the IRC protocol is that it wasn't designed to handle the huge amounts of traffic that users demand and create daily while chatting.  There's also the problem of noise and the vast lists of channels that one must wade through in order to find the one you want.  To help with this problem, many new IRC networks have emerged.  Some are specialized while others cater to everyone and every subject.

Efnet

The grandmother of IRC networks, the biggest, the oldest, the meanest.  Probably not a place you want to let your children go loose on.  Prepare to wait 15 minutes for the listing of channels to come up.

Efnet has become more popular because it is so popular, "everyone is there" and it's the network many clients go to by default after a fresh installation.  It does have a good OS/2 hangout though, the channel #OS/2.

Some example Efnet servers:
Canada: irc.cadvision.ab.ca:6667
Europe: irc.bofh.co.uk:6667
US: irc.cerf.net:6667

Undernet

One of the first 'alternative' networks to arise after Efnet.  It's the home of another #OS/2 channel.  Undernet is beginning to look a lot like Efnet with the presence of many channels and users, splits and lag.

Some example Undernet servers:
Canada: toronto.on.ca.undernet.org:6667
Random European server: eu.undernet.org:6667
Random US server: us.undernet.org:6667

Dalnet

The third major IRC network and land of dragons.  Dalnet is most notable for its features not found in most other networks.  It supports nicknames up to 30 characters long (check your client first to make sure it can too), can reserve your nickname so nobody can 'steal' it, and can reserve a channel that you 'own'.

Some example Dalnet servers:
Random Dalnet server: irc.dal.net:7000
Canada: toronto.DAL.net:7000
Europe: hades.DAL.net:7000

The Others...

There are so many other smaller networks it would take too long to cover them all.  Some are geared toward a particular region, such as BrasNet in Brazil (irc.americasnet.com.br:6667) or Austnet (sydney.au.austnet.org:6667).  Here's a brief list of other networks and an example server for each that you can try.

Afternet - blacklodge.c2.org:6667
Anothernet - together.vt.us.another.net:6667
ChatNet - LosAngeles.CA.US.ChatNet.Org:6667
GalaxyNet - chicago.il.us.galaxynet.org:6667
StarLink - Denver.CO.US.StarLink.Org:6667

-----

(http://www.spectra.net/~fox/) Chris Wenham is a Team OS/2er in Binghamton, NY with a catchy-titled company -- (http://www.spectra.net/~pendulum/webworks/) Wenham's Web Works. He has written comedy, sci-fi, HTML, Pascal, C++ and now writes software reviews.

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


GammaTech IRC v2.0	- by Chris Wenham

-----

GTIRC was the first PM-based IRC client for OS/2.  With it one could chat in multiple channels at the same time, keeping each in a separate resizable window, as well as talk to people in private using dedicated query windows.  GTIRC's ease of use was coupled with one of the first REXX interfaces for IRC clients under OS/2, freeing the user from having to learn other scripting languages in order to extend the power of the client.

Installation

GTIRC comes with its own install program that doubles up as the utility that applies future CSDs (Corrective Service Disks, or FixPaks).  This install program is nearly identical to the one used in other GammaTech products, such as the GammaTech Utilities.  

Interface

GTIRC's arrangement gives you one window for the server you're on and another separate window for each channel or private chat session.  One finds that these windows are spartan and mostly unadorned except for a toolbar that runs between the channel conversation frame and the text-entry area.  Most of the buttons are predefined but there are four that the user can configure himself to either send an IRC command or execute a REXX script.

To the right of each channel window is a user list frame that displays the nicks of all the people on the same channel, right-clickable with the mouse to see a list of actions that can be performed on that nick (such as sending a file, opening a query window or checking the person's ID).  What's especially convenient is the ability to toggle this userlist on and off using one of the buttons on the toolbar.  Since the channel conversation is dynamically word wrapped, toggling the userlist off does not leave a gaping space -- the conversation text is simply reflowed.  We discovered a slight flaw in the design of the toolbar here though; you still get the user list button in windows that cannot have a userlist -- like private message windows and the main server window -- and clicking on it doesn't do anything.

Multimedia features

GTIRC has some limited multimedia features, mainly the support for channel sound effects.  The Windows client mIRC introduced a means to play a sound effect with an event using the CTCP (Client To Client Protocol) command called 'SOUND'.  A person typing "/sound #OS/2 kaboom.wav" would broadcast a message to everyone in the channel '#OS/2' requesting that their client play the sound file 'kaboom.wav'.  The catch here is that each person would need to have the file 'kaboom.wav' already on their machine before it could be played.  GTIRC allows you to specify a range of directories where it might find such sound files (such as c:\mmos2\sounds) both when playing files requested by others and when using them yourself.  

The tragedy of this feature, inherent no matter what client you use, is that rarely does anyone ever use a sound effect that you actually have (and therefore you hear nothing).  

DCC

GTIRC's support of DCC (Direct Client to Client protocol) is adequate although definitely not the best when it comes to transferring files.  It doesn't support the ability to resume an aborted transfer, either in sending or receiving.  This is problematic when you consider that DCC is rarely as fast as FTP and connections can frequently get dropped.  GTIRC also does not have a means to automatically accept a DCC transfer from someone else.  When transferring many files at once you find yourself with a myriad of progress windows to deal with too, none of which will automatically close themselves once the transfer has completed.  If this wasn't bad enough, the programmer has reused the same window template as the channel/query/server windows, meaning that your progress dialog will have a button bar, conversation text area and entry text area that don't do anything and just take up space.  This didn't make sense to me at all.

REXX Scripting

Now stop and consider the bright side of GTIRC and one of its best, if not most useful, features of all.  The client allows you to run a separate REXX script for each outgoing and incoming message from the server, with each REXX script able to take advantage of everything REXX has to offer as well as some functions accessed through GTIRC itself.  Some scripts already written for GTIRC are the IceBerg scripts.

The outgoing (or 'cmd') script intercepts everything that you type before it's sent out over the server.  This allows you to implement simple macros or aliases or even more complicated routines that run an external program, capture its output and feed it back to you or out to the server to be displayed in the channel.  

The incoming (or 'msg') script intercepts everything coming into GTIRC from the server.  With this I was able to implement a URL catcher that 'sniffs' for text beginning with 'http://' or 'www' and creates URL objects in a folder for me to visit later.  Since this script has the power to change text before it's displayed in the window, you can use it to implement simple and effective filters that screen out undesirable content -- something that might appeal to parents worried about what their kids might be exposed to 'out there'.

This REXX integration really opens up GTIRC and makes it great for serious tasks and even professional use where logs of on-line conferences may need to be formatted in a special way or uploaded in real-time to a web server.  The only disadvantage to it is the performance.  Each of these two REXX scripts are run once for each incoming/outgoing message, so if ten lines of conversation come through per minute then the script is being run ten times per minute too.  The slowdown is noticeable, especially if you compare how fast the server's MOTD (Message of the day) is displayed both with and without a script enabled.  I noticed that the Object REXX that can be toggled on with Warp 4 or that comes with OpenDoc for Warp 3 makes GTIRC's processing prohibitively slow.

In Summary

GTIRC is probably a good choice for a beginner who wants enough features to manage comfortably with the 'crowd out there', especially since it has protection against CTCP flood attacks and is configurable enough to let you customize it easily.  The REXX interface is a hobbyist's dream, just as long as you don't put too much into the scripts and slow the client to a snail's pace.  Its main drawback is the poor DCC support and the puzzling use of the same window template everywhere.

-----

* GammaTech IRC v2.0
by (http://www.softouch.com) SofTouch Systems, Inc.
download demo from (http://www.softouch.com/demos.html) SofTouch Systems
MSRP: US$39.95

-----

(http://www.spectra.net/~fox/) Chris Wenham is a Team OS/2er in Binghamton, NY with a catchy-titled company -- (http://www.spectra.net/~pendulum/webworks/) Wenham's Web Works.  He has written comedy, sci-fi, HTML, Pascal, C++ and now writes software reviews.

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

OpenChat/2 v1.05	- by Chris Wenham

-----

The 32-bit PM IRC client, OpenChat/2 (Formerly known as OpenIRC) was only released last January, but I found it to outrank the other available OS/2 IRC clients that had been available longer by a wide margin.  It's not just that it has more power or features, it's that it's gaining more of both on an almost weekly basis.  This client is truly a hard one to beat and if you can get used to its "Unixy" feel you probably won't have any desire to go back to another client again.

Installation

The installation program has options for installing fresh or updating an existing setup.  Once it's done you need to open the default startup script in a text editor and modify your nickname, username and other details.  This step seems a bit crude since even the basic PMIRC has a dialog box for all this.

Scripts

OpenChat/2 isn't so much a complete IRC client as it is a powerful script interpreter with the plumbing underneath arranged for IRC.  Like Emacs or EPM, to run it without a script doesn't make much sense since as much as 90% of its features are added by one.  The user interface, colors, menus and almost everything you see is controlled by a script.

If that scares you, don't worry, OpenChat/2 comes with a default script that covers all the bases -- you don't actually need to edit or write one yourself.  For the purpose of this review I'll also be talking about the first major third-party script written specifically for OpenChat/2, GemZ, available free from its (http://www.silcom.com/~gemini/gemz/) web site -- mainly because it adds a lot to talk about and illustrates OpenChat/2's power nicely.

OpenChat/2 does not use REXX for scripting; instead it goes for the Unix IRCII compatible scripting language, extending it with several OpenChat/2 specific functions.  This means that you can't use any of the advantages that come with REXX -- such as its common use across the platform, familiarity and availability of third party libraries -- but you do get the ability to run any of the already numerous IRCII scripts available, plus the astonishingly fast speed of OpenChat/2's engine.  Where REXX scripted clients that follow the GTIRC convention will slow down the bigger the script gets, OpenChat/2 can have an enormously huge and complex script running with barely a heartbeat's loss in performance.  If Max sold his soul to the devil to get this kind of speed we wouldn't be surprised at all.  It really is fast.

User Interface

With the default color scheme OpenChat/2 looks a bit like someone took a text-mode IRC client and poured it into a PM window frame, with white text on a black background and a status bar that looks exactly like one out of an old text mode client (albeit slightly 3D enhanced).  The colors are very customizable; over 70 screen elements can have user defined colors.  They can be changed just by positioning the mouse over an element (such as a nick, the status bar, prompt or whatever), holding down ctrl-shift and right-clicking.  A dialog box will pop up allowing a choice of background and foreground colors.  No color wheels though, you only get a choice of the basic 16.

OpenChat/2 doesn't have a right-side nick list like GTIRC or mIRC for Windows do.  To see such a list you need to type "/names" at the prompt.  However OpenChat/2's conversation text frame is very 'hot-clickable'; you can right-click on any nick as it is displayed when a person said something.  This right-clicking will bring up a menu of actions and commands that can be performed such as granting or removing ops, checking the user's ID, performing XDCC functions, kicking, banning, adding to notify lists, pasting the contents of the clipboard as a private message and more.

And this is not the only place where the right-mouse-button is active.  Right click on a blank space in the conversation text area and you'll get a list of channel-specific functions like pasting the clipboard contents publicly, changing to another window, checking your notify list or DCC progress.  Another right-click on the status bar brings up even more, with settings and toggles you can change for each individual channel.

Under OpenChat/2 you have a separate window for each channel you're on, but these windows are so flexible you can even open up a connection to more than one server at a time (allowing you to chat on multiple networks).  Type "/window new server irc.whatever.server.com:6667" and you're set.  If that seems archaic, the GemZ script has a drop-down menu option to do the same thing.
 
With the ability to customize each of these windows separately comes one feature I really like: the ability to translate mIRC color codes on a per-channel basis.  If one channel has a majority of mIRC users you can switch the translation on and see colored text the way the user intended it to be seen, and if another channel has a majority of IRCII or OpenChat/2 users then you can leave the translation off -- without interfering with the settings of the previous channel.  Type "/save" and all of these settings are permanently saved between sessions.

But typing in an OpenChat/2 window is hindered somewhat by the single-line, horizontally-scrolling entry field.  At a glance you can't see the whole text of what you've been typing (if it's long), only what can be seen in the width of the window that you've set.  Also, using the mouse to select text you've typed isn't easy if it runs off the edge, since it scrolls by so fast it's hard not to overshoot and select too much.  Selecting text in the conversation area is easier though, however, it always selects using 'rectangle' or 'column' mode and not following the flow of the text.

Convenience

Even with the default script it seems like all the common aliases are already there waiting for the user.  "/j" works as an alias for "/join" for example, something that usually has to be configured manually under other clients.  OpenChat/2 will not pester you with windows popping up suddenly either, automatically accepting DCCs as they come.  A file transfer's progress is monitored in the status bar, cycling through if you should have more than one going.  With GemZ one can even create a dedicated private messages window, rather than have query windows pop up automatically (a feature that is also available should you want it).

I fell in love with the Tab key after using OpenChat/2.  On an empty line you can press Tab and the program will cycle through all the people who have sent you a private message since you started the session, prefixing their nick with "/msg", ready for you to type a private reply to them.  If you use GemZ, combined with the dedicated messages window, you'll have something infinitely more convenient than the idea of keeping track of multiple query windows popping up everywhere.

But what sits in a class of its own in OpenChat/2 is the use of the tab key for completing long DCC commands.  You can drag-n-drop (explained later) and pick from a file open dialog, but nine times out of ten I'll use the tab key.

Here's how it works.  Say you type the following (where "*tab*" is a tap of the Tab key):

/dcc se*tab*Tr*tab*d:/im*tab*sc*tab*ar*tab*mes*tab*

Look carefully at the above, because each time you press the *tab* OpenChat/2 will expand what you've typed into the following:

/dcc send Trevor d:/image-bank/scenery/arizona/mesa1.gif

Only taking you a couple of keystrokes to do the whole thing.  OpenChat/2's script (either the default one or GemZ -- both have this feature) is scanning your hard disk all the time, filling out the missing parts every time you hit the tab key.  Taking the above example further, say you had several images in that directory named 'mesa1.gif', 'mesa2.gif', 'mesa3.gif' and so on.  Tapping the Tab key multiple times at the end will cycle through each file that matches.  What it boils down to is this: if your hands are already on the keyboard it's so much faster than messing around with dialog boxes or folder views.  But yes, there is drag-n-drop too...

Drag-n-Drop

Dragging and dropping of files is handled well under OpenChat/2.  Keep an open folder next to the client and you can just drag-n-drop files onto the nick of a person you want to send them to.  Drop them onto you own nick and it'll set up an XDCC Offer list -- a menuing system with which you can offer files to others for automatic retrieval by request.

You can also drop what's called a "kicks file" onto a nick to boot them off the channel (if you're an 'op'), the file is just a list of smarty-pants comments that get randomly picked out as the reason for the kick.  OpenChat/2 comes with a selection that you can use, some poking fun at our favorite monopoly from Redmond.

As you move the cursor over OpenChat/2's conversation area, valid 'droppable' nicks are highlighted with a little circle as visual feedback to tell you that you've got the right one.

Where else the Scripts take thee...

As pointed out at the beginning, scripts are so tightly bonded with this client it's hard to see where OpenChat/2 ends and a script like GemZ begins.

The GemZ script is maintained, improved and updated so often that new versions become available once every other day at times.  At other times, the developer ('Gemini' on IRC) only releases updates every week.  'Gemini' is available on the Efnet IRC channel, #OpenChat, for requests, help and bug fixes.  So is 'Mikh', the author of OpenChat/2.  I've made a few requests myself, most of which became part of later revisions of the script.

For impressing the pants off mIRC users there's nothing like throwing their own colored text back at them with a quick cut-n-paste while holding the ctrl-alt keys down.  With GemZ you can use a simple utility called Figlet and type messages in large 'ASCII Art' letters.  Or right-click on any URL mentioned in the conversation area and you can send it to a currently running copy of Netscape to be loaded (options for WebEx and Lynx are there too).  And if someone likes to use ANSI escape codes for color instead of the regular '^C' codes, no worries, GemZ translates those too.

If you have the latest PMView installed you can toggle on an option in GemZ called 'AutoPreview' and watch .gif and .jpg files build up on your screen as they get DCCed to you.  Going away-from-keyboard for a while?  The script will keep a log of everything said in the channel that has your nick mentioned in it somewhere, so you know who's talking behind your back.

Both scripts have a few whimsical features hidden in them too.  With GemZ try playing with the /chefsay command a bit and see if you don't laugh yourself silly. :-)

Wrapping up

OpenChat/2 is like the Cadillac of IRC clients.  It's comfortable, robust, fully featured and a smooth ride whenever you're on-line.  Twerps, losers and momos fall by the wayside as the flood protection shuts out even the worst spammer, mIRC users playing around with their goofy colors no longer fill your screen with undecipherable 'non standard' color codes, and if a user is being just a wee bit too pesky for your channel, you can punt him into oblivion with a quick right-click on his name and a selection from the various outrageous and humiliating kicks.  (Of course it's not all that barbaric out there. <g>)

I like the interface for the most part but there are a couple spots where it doesn't perform so well.  The idea of making the conversation area 'hot right-clickable' is nice, but if the conversation is moving swiftly nicks can scroll out from under the cursor before you have a chance to click.  Drag-n-drop has the same problem.  With that out of the way my final conclusion is that OpenChat/2 kicks some serious rumpola.

-----

*OpenChat/2 v1.05
by(mikh@escape.com) Max Mikhanosha
download from the(http://www.os2ss.com/internet/ochat105.zip) OS/2 Supersite(ZIP, 508k)
Registration:US$29.00

-----

(http://www.spectra.net/~fox/) Chris Wenhamis a Team OS/2er in Binghamton, NY with a catchy-titled company --(http://www.spectra.net/~pendulum/webworks/) Wenham's Web Works.  He has written comedy, sci-fi, HTML, Pascal, C++ and now writes software reviews.

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

Interview: Max Mikhanosha	- by David C. Guttormsen

-----

As anyone who spends any amount of time using IRC networks knows, Max Mikhanosha is the author of the award winning IRC client, OpenChat/2 (OpenChat/2 was the runner-up in the 'Best IRC Client' category of the (http://www.os2ezine.com/v2n2/internet.htm) 1996 OS/2 e-Zine! Readers' Choice Awards).

For those that don't frequent IRC channels, an IRC client is a program that allows users to connect to IRC servers around the world and chat with other people in real time.  OpenChat/2, despite its relative newness on the scene (the winner in the 'Best IRC Client' category is practically ancient when compared to newcomer OpenChat/2), has won a loyal and vocal following among IRC users.

Last month, I had a chance to speak with Max, or 'mikh' as he is known on IRC, in his natural environment.  How else would you interview the author of an IRC program than with his own client?

                  * * *


e-Zine! :  OK, I am here with Mikh, author Of OpenChat/2.

mikh:  heya all :)

e-Zine! :  Let's jump right in: when did you first start OpenChat/2?

mikh:  About a year ago if I remember right.

e-Zine! :  So you have worked on it for a year?  How many revisions did it go through?

mikh:  A lot of them :)  There were more then 25 beta versions.  At least I remember talking to Thomas Bradford of BMT Micro about releasing it in May of 1996, but it took much longer.  I prefer to release a new version whenever even a small bug is fixed, not like once a year updates.

e-Zine! :  Was the beta a fairly wide beta?

mikh:  Not very wide.  About 20-25 active beta testers who'd send bug reports.

Also there are was a team of 3-4 people who were writing scripts for OpenChat/2 and these were mostly testers I was working with.

e-Zine! :  So OpenChat/2 uses an exclusive script language then?

mikh:  OpenChat/2 scripting is mostly compatible with UNIX IRCII.  Mostly means not completely.

e-Zine! :  Can you expand on 'Mostly'?  What are some distinct features to OpenChat/2's scripting language that are not found in other Clients?

mikh:  For example there are no ^ operations in expressions and some UNIX scripts that use them rely on UNIX IRCII bugs, so they will not work.

e-Zine! :  So then _is_ OpenChat/2 not IRCII compatible?

mikh:  Yes, you can run UNIX IRCII scripts, if you provide a UNIX-like environment, that mean all UNIX utilities like cat, ls, rm and such, and a UNIX-compatible shell.

e-Zine! :  I know there is already at least one OpenChat/2 exclusive script, and others to follow.  Does this means that I can not stay with say, LiCe or Phoenix, that I have been using for years?

mikh:  Nope: running LiCe or Phoenix is not recommended on OpenChat/2.  Not that you cannot do that, but why would you want to use a GUI client with a script that does not support color, menus, sounds, drag-n-drop and such?

OpenChat/2 scripting is very fast.  It compiles scripts to a bytecode, like REXX or Perl or ELisp.  That makes script execution much faster.

e-Zine! :  What does the speed increase offer the end user though?

mikh:  Instead of adding a lot of hard coded features to the client itself, OpenChat/2 tries to move more functions to the script.  That allows great flexibility, i.e. when mIRC introduced ^C color codes, it was a 5 minute change in a script to support them, without changing the client itself.

Because of a fast scripting speed, scripts can handle large amount of text, process / convert / whatever it, without using a lot of CPU time.

e-Zine! :  So OpenChat/2 works well as a background app?

mikh:  Yes, it works fine as a 'bot'.  In fact I saw people having weeks of uptime with OpenChat/2 running.  OS/2 crashed first, not the client. :)

e-Zine! :  (smiling)  So it is not that OpenChat/2 _can't_ run them, it is just that they are not able to utilise all of OpenChat/2's potential?

mikh:  Exactly.  There are enough native scripts for OpenChat/2 which are utilizing all of its power.  People who are used to LiCe scripts may want to stay with the default OpenChat/2 script, it looks more like LiCe.  People who prefer Phoenix/Purapak/BitZ scripts can download GemZ, which reminds them of these.

Also there are interesting things about the interface in general.  The whole user interface that you see, i.e. menus, colors, sounds, drag-n-drop, dcc stuff etc., is coded in a script.  There are default scripts which consist of two files (sample.irc and openmenu.scr).  There is also a file called 'OpenChat/2 startup script' (OpenChat/2.irc) which is loaded automatically on startup (kind of like AUTOEXEC.BAT) and from which other scripts are loaded.

Say you installed GemZ, it comments out the default script from the startup file and inserts itself there.  This means all menus and the whole client interface itself is driven by the GemZ script.  Ninety-nine percent of all you see is what the script is doing.  OpenChat/2 is actually kind of like a small virtual machine for running scripts. :)

e-Zine! :  What was your reason for making OpenChat/2?

mikh:  Because I like IRC and there was no client [for OS/2] that suited my needs.

e-Zine! :  So you Just whipped one out?

mikh:  When I started, I tried GtIRC, PMIRC, and mIRC (windows client).

I was trying to create a program you can use to chat and have fun, not to struggle with scripts and configuration.

e-Zine! :  What are some future plans for OpenChat/2, if any?

mikh:  Short term plans:

Fixing bugs; making raw dialogs accessible for scripts so scripts will be able to display large notebooks and such for configurations; more work on a scripting language itself -- especially a bytecode compiler -- it's not nearly as fast as it could be; more info in the .HLP file; and I need to write some kind of 'Introduction to IRCII scripting' article, with some examples and such.

Long term plans:

Support for VTD (does anyone need this by the way?).  Also I need to buy a new machine that will be able to run VTD to add that support...

Adding text editor capabilities maybe?  Then it will be possible to write a newsreader totally in scripting, and such, a-la emacs.

e-Zine! :  Interesting, so you plan to make this into a Suite of applications?

mikh:  The only one application I'm missing for OS/2 is a good and very configurable newsreader actually, so maybe it will be my next project. :)

I don't know yet, that's why these are 'long-term' plans... I'm thinking about it, watching how IBM moves about OS/2 and such. :)

e-Zine! :  In your OpenChat/2 adventures what was the toughest part of the program?

mikh:  Answering questions. :)

e-Zine! :  (smiling) Besides that, where there any particular sections of the program that where a real hurdle to get over?

mikh:  The hardest part was a bytecode compiler, and screen output code.

e-Zine! :  But it _did_ take you a year to produce OpenChat/2, there must have been some hang-ups.

mikh:  Especially marking with colors. :)  But watching mIRC users asking 'How the hell'd you do it?!' when I do color cut-n-paste was worth it.

I don't know.  Everything was not too easy. :)  IBM has some things not very-well documented.

e-Zine! :  Such as?

mikh:  The most noticeable examples are: AVIO documentation is very hard to find.  (Thanks to some guys from inside IBM who gave me some pointers.)  Searching contents table of .HLP files is also not documented anywhere, so I had to debug VIEW.EXE and see how it does it.

So a lot of time was taken inventing kludges to get around some bugs in OS/2.  Hopefully it all will be fixed in Warp 5.0.

e-Zine! :  Overall how do you feel about your work, has it turned out as planned?  Or as good as you intended?

mikh:  I really enjoying being on IRC now. :)

The most common feature I'm using is launching Netscape Navigator or feeding URLs to an existing Netscape session when right-clicking over the URL with the mouse...  Also pasting back and forth from usenet newsgroups to/from IRC is very easy using the SmartPaste function.

e-Zine! :  Where did the term MoMo come from?  I take it is a derogatory term?

mikh:  Originally it come from a movie.  _Get Shorty_ I think.  Then it started being used on IRC as a nickname for a newbie user.

e-Zine! :  Did you pick it up and start using it?  I am asking because of the default username setting is MOMOBOY.

mikh:  Don't feel insulted because the default nickname is MomoBoy.  It's as good as any other default nickname, and it's not very often used on IRC.  I have an autoinvite to #OpenChat/2 channel whenever the nickname MomoBoy appears on IRC. :)

IRC has developed some kind of a slang, and 'momo' since became a part of it, especially on OS/2 related channels. :)

e-Zine! :  So, the new user immediately gets access to a channel that provides help?

mikh:  Yes, there are always some people on #OpenChat/2.  They are there to help.

I wanna tell you, even if no one is answering (at 5am for example), still ask your questions and report problems, we are reading scrollback when returning to our computers.

Also e-mails to (mikh@escape.com) mikh@escape.com with 'OpenChat/2' in the subject line are always answered.

e-Zine! :  Speaking of OS/2 Related channels, is there going to be a Win95 version of OpenChat/2?

mikh:  All I can tell you is that I refuse to use Windows 95 as a development platform.  When I am able to afford to buy a new machine powerful enough to install Windows NT, I will port OpenChat/2 to Win32.

But I do not expect it to happen 'soon' (in 2-4 months I mean).

e-Zine! :  How have Windows users found out about OpenChat/2?

mikh:  There are a lot of people who run Win95/NT and OS/2 alongside using BootManager.
 So they told their friends and such. :)

e-Zine! :  Ah.  Where did you learn programming?  And what language is OpenChat/2 written in?

mikh:  I have been programming for a living since I was 16. :)  My first projects were custom built real-time boards on 1816 micro-controllers (used in AT keyboards now) and interfacing those boards to AT286 machines.

I was responsible for writing a 1816 emulator using Turbo Pascal v4.5 and v5.0 so we could debug our board on that emulator.

e-Zine! :  So you just 'picked up' Pascal?

mikh:  Yes, Turbo Pascal was a great choice for fast development when 286's with 1 meg were considered high-end machines.

As for OpenChat/2, it's written using Watcom C 10.5 compiler.

Its a great compiler, which produces very fast code.

e-Zine! :  Just for curiosity, and for those old IBMers out there, how many kloc's (kilolines of code) is OpenChat/2?

mikh:  Let me count...

Just did wc -l *.c *.h -- it's 111,772 lines.

But my code is very wide BSD style and has a lot of comments so it probably can be squeezed in size twice by removing some comments and running indent on it.

e-Zine! :  If there was one piece of information you wanted readers to know, what would it be?

mikh:  It's a good habit for OS/2 users to use the right mouse button everywhere.  In OpenChat/2, with the default script, I guarantee that whenever you right-click with the mouse anywhere you will get a content-specific menu, like clicking on a URL or someone's nickname.

e-Zine! :  Well I thank you for your time, and mostly for a great client.  Is there anything else you want to add?

mikh:  There are a lot of features in OpenChat/2.  It takes time to explore them all and some things are different than in other clients.  So whenever you feel like you know all about it, e-mail me at (mikh@escape.com) mikh@escape.com or ask on #OpenChat/2, there are always new things explore and to play with. :)

-----

(mikh@escape.com) Max Mikhanosha is the author of OpenChat/2 and can be found on the #OpenChat/2 channel most of the time.

-----

(tgr@eskimo.com) David C. Guttormsen is a 26 year old married, hard working, OS/2-loving kind of guy.  He has a plethora of pets, 2 Boys (ages 17 and 21), a loving wife who understands and supports his computer hobby, and who also loves OS/2.

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

SyQuest EZFlyer 230	- by Christopher B. Wright

-----

If you're like me, you've got a good bit of hard drive space tied up because of the Internet.  You've been on-line for a few years, and the entire time you've been downloading patches, fixes, updates, add-ons, FixPaks, etc., and now that companies are starting to provide electronic purchases, you've even got full-fledged applications (such as the Stardock PlusPak!) just sitting there eating up space.  What's a user to do?  All of these are valuable, and if you spent two days trying to download Netscape Navigator/2 on a phone line that kept disconnecting three-fourths of the way through the process, you don't want to just delete it when you're done installing.  You want to save it in case you need to install it again.

I actually have a hierarchy for my downloaded files.  I have a directory called "archives" that contains all the software I know I'll want to keep, and a directory called "downloads" that I haven't made up my mind about yet.  Both of these just sit on my drive, gathering dust, until I need to reinstall something, then I find the specific application and install it.

I'm not happy with this arrangement.  It seems to me I should be able to simply archive all these files and retrieve them only when I need them -- but using my tape backup system as a selective file archiver seems stupid, since it would take forever to find the file I want, and saving them all to floppy would take -- well, a lot of floppies.

Also, I'm starting to get very interested in multimedia, multimedia authoring and digital recording.  These kinds of projects eat up space on your hard drive like nobody's business!  How do you find the space for work like this -- and how do you protect what you're working on, while at the same time being able to access it quickly?

The answer is, of course, _removable media_.  Removable media is, in a nutshell, a very large, fast hard disk that you insert and use as a floppy, remove when it's full, and replace it with another one.  Using removable media, I would be able to save my 'archives' directory to a large disk, store it on a shelf somewhere, and use it when I needed it -- saving space for other things.  Likewise, I'd be able to store graphics and multimedia projects on something other than my fixed hard drives -- which is a good idea since I like to tweak my system for performance, and I'm not very good at it...  One time last I fall I was doing this and I accidentally deleted every (http://www.os2ezine.com/helpdesk/) Help Desk comic strip I'd ever drawn for OS/2 e-Zine!.  I was not pleased.

When I decided to add a removable media component to my computer system, I had two major vendors with varying solutions, coming in many permutations and combinations: SyQuest (EZ135, EZFlyer 230, and the new 1.5 gig model) or Iomega (Zip or Jazz); SCSI or IDE; Internal or External.  I immediately dismissed the extra-large capacity models (1 gig or up) because they seemed too bulky for what I wanted to do.  Someday, if I start creating CD-ROMs, this may change but at the moment I simply want to be able to store lots of small to somewhat large files efficiently.

My next decision was to buy an internal model, since I didn't see myself wanting to use it on more than one computer (I would have decided otherwise if I used both a desktop and a laptop computer, but I don't at this time).  And finally, I decided on a SCSI drive because I was planning to start going to a SCSI setup anyway -- to make it easier to add and expand hardware.

So now I had to decide on which vendor: Iomega or SyQuest.  Actually, there are many other vendors making removable media out there, but I remembered Chris Wenham had reviewed the (http://www.os2ezine.com/v1n12/zip.htm) Iomega Zip drive in a previous issue, and I'd heard the SyQuest drives supported OS/2 very, very well (even including a section for OS/2 in their documentation!).

I ultimately decided on a SyQuest drive for the following reasons:

1.  SyQuest drives reportedly run as fast as normal hard drives.
2.  SyQuest drives offer more storage capacity than Zip drives for a similar price.
3.  I have heard (and experienced second hand) horrible stories about Iomega's technical support.

I wound up with an external SCSI SyQuest EZFlyer 230.  External, because apparently it's difficult to find an internal version of the drive in stores, and EZFlyer 230 because apparently SyQuest no longer makes the EZ135's.  This didn't bother me much, however, because the EZFlyer will read and write the EZ135 135mb cartridges as well as its own 230mb cartridges with no problem.

Installing the EZFlyer 230

Installation is very straightforward: once you have your SCSI card working (which isn't difficult under OS/2, since Warp is very SCSI friendly), you simply hook up your device correctly and install the drivers.  The OS/2 drivers are included with the drive, and the documentation does have a brief section on installing it under OS/2.  And a brief section is all you need -- it's a painless process and shouldn't give you any headaches.

The only problems you'll have will be if you happen to hook up the device the wrong way.  SCSI devices are very picky about how they're hooked up, and for about a week I couldn't get my drive to do anything because I'd plugged the SCSI cable into the wrong port.

For IDE users of this device, you may have more difficulty running it from a parallel port.  I have heard some reports of incompatibilities with the IDE SyQuest drives.  None of these reports came from OS/2 users, but 'caveat emptor' regardless.

Once you have the SyQuest drivers installed, the drive will be treated as a fixed hard disk by your computer.  If you take a look at your drives folder, you'll see it represented as a standard drive object.  Because it is represented as a fixed disk, you can only switch cartridges when OS/2 has been shut down (i.e.,  between reboots).

This is annoying, but necessary.  Unlike other operating systems, OS/2 doesn't really handle removable media very well by default.  It seems to have three basic types of media that it can identify: floppy disks, fixed disks, and CD-ROM drives.  Anything other than these can cause problems -- especially if you want to format them as HPFS drives.  HPFS was designed to be used on a fixed disk, and if an HPFS drive were to suddenly be removed, it could damage your data.

If you don't like having to shut down OS/2 simply to remove a disk, you do have other options.  Your first stop should be the (http://www.txdirect.net/users/teej/remmedia.htm) Removable Media FAQ.  This FAQ is very helpful -- it covers all the problems you're likely to run into trying to set up your removable media hardware on your computer and the various alternatives you have to get around them.  The FAQ mentions that IBM has released beta replacement drivers for some .add files that will allow OS/2 to correctly support removable drives, so I decided to try them out.  IBM does not officially support these yet: apparently they will be included in a future release of Warp (either 4.1 or 5.0) but at the moment, you are on your own trying to get them to work.

The instructions included with installing these drivers are clear, but incomplete.  After a week of trying to get them to work (with no success) I discovered that before I could get the drivers to recognize my SyQuest as a removable drive, I first had to remove the BASEDEV=SYQLOCK.FLT driver from my config.sys file -- since this is apparently the driver that tells OS/2 the EZFlyer is a fixed disk, and it supersedes anything the beta drivers try to do.  Once I did that, it worked like a charm.  My SyQuest EZFlyer is now a fully removable drive, HPFS and all, and its drive object has been changed accordingly.

With these new drivers, you can't just press the eject button to remove the drive though.  OS/2 needs to clean up the disk before it gets ejected (to avoid loss of data), so instead, when you right-click over the drive object you will see a new option ("eject") that will flush all buffers on the drive and eject it for you.  There is also a command line utility (eject.exe) that will do the same thing.

The EZFlyer 230: evaluation

"But," you ask, "does it work?"  The answer is: surprisingly well.  I'd heard reports in the past that SyQuest drives were touchy and easily damaged, but so far that hasn't proven true (I've been using it for a month and half now).  I even accidentally dropped it once, and the drive and the cartridge managed to survive.  It's very, very fast -- about as fast as a hard drive, which is certainly much faster than the Iomega Zip drive I've used at work.  And it makes a handy file archiver.  I now have a dedicated "download" cartridge, a dedicated "graphics" cartridge, and a dedicated "multimedia" cartridge.  The 135mb cartridges are the perfect size for about 5-10 minutes of CD-quality audio, depending on its complexity.

The EZFlyer is a bit more expensive than a Zip drive, (certainly the SCSI version is) but it also gives you more bang for your buck.  The 135 MB cartridges are competitively priced with Zip disks (~$20 US), and the 230 MB cartridges are ~$40 US the last time I saw them quoted.

Conclusions

If your primary interest is being able to share information with other platforms, the Zip drive may actually be a better choice because it has become a sort of informal "standard", but SyQuest is still a big name in this industry and probably isn't going anywhere any time soon.  And the speed of its drives make it more convenient for working with large files straight from the disk, which is something many people may find desirable.

The SCSI version of the EZFlyer comes with everything you need to set it up except a SCSI card.  It supports OS/2 right out of the box -- you don't need to purchase the drivers separately, which is a big plus over Iomega's OS/2 support policies.  If you want a drive that is well-supported when you run into problems, the EZFlyer is definitely something to consider over the Zip, since Iomega has a spotty track record on that account.

One final thing to consider is that there may be difference in performance between the SCSI and IDE versions.  I've heard a few less-than-glowing comments about the reliability of the IDE version of this drive, but I haven't been able to verify them myself (since I don't have one).  My experience has been fairly painless so far.  I am very happy with this drive, and strongly recommend it.

-----

Computer used in this review:

P166 w/64mb RAM
Adaptec UltraSCSI PCI card
Matrox Millennium, 4mbWRAM
SyQuest EZFlyer 230

-----

* SyQuest EZFlyer 230
by (http://www.syquest.com/) SyQuest Technology, Inc.
MSRP: US$299.00

-----

(cwbrenn@ibm.net) Christopher B. Wright is a technical writer in the Northern Virginia/D.C. area, and has been using OS/2 Warp since January 95.  He is also a member of Team OS/2.

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

PlusPak! for OS/2	- by Jon Cochran

-----

Have you ever felt it?  You know that feeling you get when you walk by a Windows 95 or NT 4.0 machine and see how nice and crisp their icons look?  It's a feeling which produces a few pangs in most OS/2 users, but quickly goes away.  Mostly.

If you are one of those few who must have your sculpted icons, Stardock has a product for you.  The first PlusPak! for OS/2, Themes, is a collection of icon schemes suitable for just about anyone's taste.

Installation

Installation of this product is rather straightforward, the installation program consisting of a REXX script (instead of a nice Presentation Manager based installation).  In its defense though, the install _is_ painless.  One word of warning: make sure to reboot after you install.

Some early purchasers of PlusPak! experienced problems installing the program but Stardock was quick to release a Fixkit.  This Fixkit and some common problems and their solutions can be found on (http://www.stardock.com/tech_plus.html) Stardock's FAQ page.

Up and Running

Once you get the PlusPak! up and running, you can select from a folder filled with different icon schemes.  Clicking on one of the schemes produces a dialog with different options for applying the scheme (background bitmaps, custom icons and positions, fonts, etc.).  (I suspect most people will probably only apply the custom icons and bitmaps, and leave their icons where they are, but for those who wish to be reorganized, the option is there.)

Once you apply an icon scheme, you'll find the vast majority of the icons on your Desktop have a slick, colorful look to them.  A few of the more obscure icons won't be changed (mostly icons the Stardock would not have known you had on your system).  All in all though, your system will be much more eye-pleasing.

The program also will attempt to make an Undo Scheme for you.  On my machine, this didn't work either time I attempted it, and once it put my system into a rather nasty Desktop cycling loop.  Again, Stardock has addressed this problem and it appears to be fixed so users purchasing PlusPak! in the future should not be bothered by it.

This Undo Scheme also does double duty as a great and convenient way to store your Desktop in case of disaster or to easily share it with other users.  You can actually create as many of your own schemes as you like, not just the one Undo Scheme.  This process is as simple as dragging the provided "Icon Scheme" template to the Desktop, right clicking and selecting "Scheme->Exract from Desktop".  In a matter of moments you'll have an file containing all the parts of your Desktop you chose to save that you can send to friends via floppy disk, network, BBS or the Internet.

The Schemes

So what do they look like?  The real work that Stardock put into PlusPak!: Themes is the labour required to draw the hundreds of icons included in the product.  While there are a _lot_ of icons, they basically fall into two different categories, with many colors available for each category.  These two categories are "Office", and "2000".  Users have their choice in each category of "Candy", "Copper", "Dolphin", "Forest", "Grape", "Lemon" and "Warp" and "Object Desktop", which only comes in the "2000" variety.  These are all just color variations so don't expect to see unique icons in each one.

There are also "Mini Schemes", in PlusPak!: Themes.  These are schemes which only replace a few of the Desktop icons.  They are: "Ancient Egypt", "Classic", "Golden Age" and "Santa Fe".

All the icons look great, even at 640x480 resolution.  It might have been nice to see more unique icons in the product but there _are_ plenty there and they _are_ a great improvement over the standard Warp offerings.

As an added bonus, when you apply one of the schemes to your Desktop, it only replaces icons for objects if you those objects are using standard icons.  If you modify some of your Desktop objects, PlusPak! will not overwrite your changes when applying its schemes.  This is a nice touch.

Conclusions

At US$24.95, PlusPak!: Themes from Stardock Systems, appeals strongly to those with Windows envy.  If the rest of the PlusPak! series remains at the same cost, Stardock may find they've got a good thing on their hands.

-----

* PlusPak! for OS/2
by (http://www.stardock.com/) Stardock Systems, Inc.
MSRP: US$24.95

-----

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

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

InJoy a personal LAN
in your home with IP Masquerading	- by Jon Winters

-----

Last December my curiosity was piqued by a good article by Ethan Hall Beyer Titled "(http://www.os2ezine.com/v1n14/socks.htm) How to share an Internet connection 
for little or no cost".  This article triggered a chain reaction of ideas in my brain that had me constantly thinking of the benefits of sharing a modem connection.

My situation is a little different from most though, in that my home computer is a web server called (http://www.obscurasite.com/) Obscura!  Obscura stays connected to the Internet all the time on a dedicated ISDN line.

My employer was kind enough to provide me with a killer IBM ThinkPad 760ED.  This is a great computer but not being able to dial the laptop in to the Internet without tying up another phone line was a real bummer.  So I decided that I needed to set up a LAN in my home office.

Ethan's solution for sharing a modem mentioned above involves running quite a few servers and some client software.  While this is a good solution, I always consider many ways to do every project and usually choose the path that involves the least amount of resources.  One of my main goals for Obscura is high reliability and I knew that running the SOCKS server would require running a Domain Name Server on Obscura.  I have no less than ten programs running 24 hours a day already so I was looking for a simpler solution.

Why I use InJoy

When setting up Obscura it became very important to maintain my connection to the Internet 24 hours a day without interruptions.  Most dialers are not up to this task.  InJoy, however, is packed with features that help me stay connected and the lean text mode interface is a bonus since it uses less RAM than clunky PM-dialers.

The InJoy dialer also has built in IP-masquerading for sharing its connection with more than one computer.  In fact, I found that combined with Warp 4 or Warp Connect, InJoy can get the same results as Ethan's solution, using less system resources.  So I decided to set up a personal LAN with InJoy's IP masquerading!

What is IP Masquerading?

Here is some basic information, based on what I pulled  from the (http://www.fx.dk/Injoy/) InJoy WWW site and from the InJoy documentation:

"IP Masquerading allows you to share one dial up connection.  With it you can use InJoy as an Internet gateway for your LAN even though you have only one IP address and modem.

Install InJoy on one computer and everyone can surf the 'net, get mail, read news, telnet and everything else, from any computer on the LAN, all at the same time!

In addition to sharing the connection InJoy works like a firewall by stopping intruders from ranging around inside your LAN.  The outside world cannot gain unsolicited access.  My ThinkPad is protected without me blowing a pile of money on routers, firewalls, IP numbers, etc."

I am happy to report that this is very easy to set up and it works great!  If you have more than one computer in your house and would like to share a modem connection to the Internet, InJoy and Warp 4 or Warp Connect is all you need.

Well okay, you will need a few other things...

Shopping list for IP Masquerading:

You will need:

o  One modem
o  One account with an Internet service provider
o  One Ethernet Hub
o  Two computers
o  Two Ethernet adapters
o  Two Ethernet cables

note: You can expand the last three ingredients, just keep a 1:1:1 ratio.

Obscura has a 3Com Impact IQ ISDN adapter.  My ThinkPad has a 3Com Etherlink III PCMCIA Ethernet card and I decided to keep a good thing going by purchasing a 3Com Etherlink III Ethernet card for Obscura.  The hub is the cheapest one available at the local computer "mega-store".  It's a MaxTech 5 port unit.

InJoy's IP masquerading will work with any decent Ethernet card and if you want to save some bread you can go with coax cable and you won't even need a Hub.  My ThinkPad Ethernet card was 10base-T so I had no choice.  (note: the 3Com cards pack a lifetime warranty and work great with OS/2.)

Setting up the TCP/IP network and applying IP Masquerading

If you have the hardware you are ready to get started hooking things up.  Just follow these really simple steps:

1. Download, configure and test InJoy on the computer with the modem.

2. Install the Ethernet cards in both computers and get them to boot without errors.  This went very smoothly with the 3Com cards.  Warp came with drivers and the 3Com was auto-detected during OS/2 installation.

3. On the InJoy computer find and open your TCP/IP Configuration (LAN) notebook.

4. The only pages that I had to change to enable the LAN interface were the first two.  The settings below are an exact copy of what worked for me.

o  Page one, Network.  On the network page you will need to check the 'Enable interface' box and choose the 'Manually, using:' radio button.  I used IP addresses provided by (bj@fx.dk) Bjarne Jensen, the author of InJoy.  They are the same ones he uses on his IP masquerading setup.  198.168.1.100 is the IP of the card in Obscura.  The netmask on both machines is 255.255.255.0.

o  page two, Routing.  Check the 'IP forwarding' checkbox and ADD a new route to the card.  Use the same settings in the image linked at the beginning of this sentence.

You do _NOT_ need to run a DNS server, Route daemon or SOCKS server.  You only need InJoy.

5. Look in the System Setup toolbox for the MPTS Network Adapters and Protocol Services icon.  Double click to launch and configure.

I needed to configure the NetBios socket access.  Of course I chose Obscura as the host name.  You should use something else.

6. Add SET HOSTNAME=YOURNAME to your CONFIG.SYS

7. Open InJoy and go to the settings for your connection and check the [X] IP MASQUERADING checkbox.

8. Now you are done with configuration for the InJoy machine and you should reboot it for changes to take effect.

9. On the other computer you will need to install and enable the network card for TCP/IP.  My employer forces me to use a non-OS/2 operating system.  Below is an overview of how the masqueraded computer is set up.

10. On the client computer you should set up the "gateway IP" to the same IP address that you gave the network card in the InJoy machine (198.168.1.100).

11. Assign an IP of 198.168.1.200 to the network card in the client computer.  Again, this is the IP that Bjarne uses.

12. Connect the two computers to the Hub with 10base-T or to each other with coax cable.

13. Go back to the InJoy computer and connect to the Internet.

14. Boot the masqueraded computer and InJoy your new IP masqueraded Internet connection!

After several weeks of testing I have found InJoy's IP masquerading to be very stable and reliable.  There is no noticeable performance hit on Obscura or the masqueraded machine, now dubbed "shadow".  Obscura doesn't care if the second computer is connected or not.

I have also been able to FTP files between the two computers because Obscura is running an FTP server.  I can even hit my Proxy server at work from "shadow" to access the corporate intranet.

If you have more than one computer in your home and have been thinking of setting up a LAN, InJoy is a great and easy way to connect your personal LAN to the Internet!

(http://www.fx.dk/Injoy/) InJoy is a product of (http://www.fx.dk/) F/X Communications.

Feel free to (winters@obscurasite.com) e-mail me if you have any 
questions.

-----

Jon Winters is the owner and operator of (http://www.obscurasite.com/)  Obscura!  With the help of a few good friends he is up to all kinds of mischief on the web.

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

Getting Updated, Staying Updated	- by Nenad Milenkovic

-----

Disclaimer: I am not an IBM employee, and if I was, be assured that I would not be after this article is published.

Do you know why IBM added voice recognition to Warp 4?  Well, IBM is a big company and employees were having difficulty finding PC's in their offices with OS/2 installed on them.  Now they just call out, and any Warp 4 computers in the area answer back!  Considering IBM's upcoming marketing and advertising campaign, they must realize this is what their customers will need too.  And, true to the new company religion, they have given them what they want.  Rumor is that the next version will even come with rotating light included.

OK, enough dark sarcasm.  I love my operating system.  I love its features, user interface, consistency, object model and scripting language.  But as you all know, unrequited love can be a real nightmare.  Being forced to pay for support, to crawl around FTP sites (does ftp2.service4.second-floor.third-rock-to-the-left.boulder-dash.ibm.com sound familiar?) and find out which files are real and which they've just forgot to delete, to find news and updates for many components packed together in a way almost as good as shareware distributors pack their archives makes that nightmare a lasting experience.

The intent of this article is to help you stay updated and show you how to grab all the free software IBM recently released for OS/2 through their distributed web space.  This article covers only Warp 4 because I am not as backward supportive as IBM is.

FixPak 1

FixPak is (finally) released.  You can get it from:

(ftp.software.ibm.com/ps/products/os2/fixes/v4warp/english-us/xr_m001/) ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/ps/products/os2/fixes/v4warp/english-us/xr_m001/

You will find nine files there, grab them all.  You will also need LOADDSKF.EXE (there is a copy in the \DISKIMGS directory on the Warp 4 CD-ROM), and the following:

(service.boulder.ibm.com/ps/products/os2/fixes/wkickr/wkickr.zip) ftp://service.boulder.ibm.com/ps/products/os2/fixes/wkickr/wkickr.zip

This FixPak changes several files and contains many bug fixes, but is not (another) "quiet upgrade" from previous version to Warp 4.1, as some enthusiasts claimed.  It contains only fixes for the base OS/2 (including multimedia and VoiceType), but NOT for OpenDoc, Java, networking, the TCP/IP stack, BonusPak, Notes Mail, drivers, the WarpCenter, TME management software... (ever wondered which of IBM's products had the most names?).  It does not contain the new, fully 32-bit HPFS, or even the new 32-bit CHKDSK some people have rumored (quoted from one closed APAR: "It [a fix for a 'minor chkdsk problem'] should also be present in the new version of Chkdsk shipping June '97.").

It does not support VFAT (no need to mention FAT32).  There is no new web browser, no new telnet or FTP client/server, no better TrueType support, no free personal web server.  It is not an upgrade: it _is_ a bug fix for a few dozen existing DLL's and EXE's in the base operating system though.

And it's not easy to install either -- there is no installation program or anything like that.  As in preceding FixPaks, you will have to make diskettes (yes, you read that right: nine for the FixPak, two more for... just a second while I consult the literature... Corrective Service Facility Diskettes).  There is a 35K README file you should read carefully.

There's also an option to install FixPak 1 directly from the WWW.  I would like to see this as an option for smaller updates, but not for a 15MB FixPak!  Still, if you are on a high-bandwidth connection to Internet or if you don't need to use your computer and phone line for a while, you can try it from:

(http://ps.boulder.ibm.com/softupd.html) http://ps.boulder.ibm.com/softupd.html

Be aware: as in all previous fixes, there is a chance that you will not be able to restart OS/2 after applying this FixPak.

IBM's official position concerning FixPaks is: don't fix what's not broken.  My position about FixPak 1 is: you have been warned.  You will _need_ to install this FixPak, however, if you want to use Word Pro and Freelance 96 for OS/2.

Java 1.0.2

Java 1.0.2 has finally been released, adding increased performance, more security (how convenient of them, thank you folks!) and bug-fixes.  IBM has also announced that Java 1.1 will be available by the end of March (so expect it somewhere around May/June).

There are no significant problems with this new Java, there is even an installation program.  It did break my NetREXX installation (see below), but since NetREXX it is made for developers, this shouldn't be a big problem for most people.

You can get Java 1.0.2 from:

(http://www.software.ibm.com/os/warp/java/java102.htm) http://www.software.ibm.com/os/warp/java/java102.htm

OpenDoc v1.1

Next, OpenDoc v1.1 is available.  Officials have said it is performance- and feature-improved.  If true, this will be a good thing for OpenDoc, which previously displayed its logo every time a component was used and unloaded itself from memory completely when components were not in use.

IBM is not currently as enthusiastic about OpenDoc as they are about Java (although the two don't exclude each other!), but they will continue to enhance it.  Because of this, OpenDoc is more attractive for developers that need its many modern features in large networks than for rest of us.  The main reason: there are no third-party components to use.  To really get all the benefits of component-ware, you need lots of "parts" so you can build your documents.

(Disclaimer: a new word processor from (http://www.sundialsystems.com/) Sundial Systems and new image editing software from TrueSpectra were announced recently, and they should be built as OpenDoc components -- so stay tuned.)

However, considering Apple's newest announcement that they will (almost) stop further development of OpenDoc after MacOS 8, I wouldn't bet on IBM's support either.  We'll also have to wait to see if they will make any efforts to integrate it with JavaBeans as they planned.

You can get OpenDoc v1.1 from:

(http://www.software.ibm.com/ad/opendoc/) http://www.software.ibm.com/ad/opendoc/

You will also find OpenDoc for Windows NT/95 at that site.  For other IBM NT software you can check out at (http://www.software.ibm.com/nt/) http://www.software.ibm.com/nt/.  Before you ask: no, there is no (http://www.software.ibm.com/os2/) http://www.software.ibm.com/os2/.  This is probably a symptom of IBM's plans to grab 20% of NT's market in the next two years.

OpenDoc Web Pak

The OpenDoc Web Pak is also available for free download.  It is an example of what OpenDoc should be.  Download it to see the potential of this superb technology and you will probably start lamenting the lack of support for it, like I do.  Embedding HTML pages in every document is quite a nice feature.  If Lotus had seen this before, they might not have needed to create their limited HTTP and HTML support from scratch for Word Pro.

OpenDoc Web Pak consists of 4 components:

o  Java Applet Handler (enables you to embed Java applets in any OpenDoc container)

o  Netscape plug in handler (use Netscape Plug-ins in any OpenDoc application -- not yet available!)

o  Netscape Plug-in for OpenDoc Components (embed OpenDoc components in Web pages and use them over the Internet -- if you know what Microsoft ActiveX does, this is the same idea)

o  HTML document handler (the name says it all: a component for Web browsing)


Warning: the Web Pak is designed for OpenDoc v1.0, and it seems that it does not work with OpenDoc v1.1.  The available version is from around October '96.  Support for OpenDoc v1.1 has been announced but there have been no updates since.

You can get the OpenDoc Web Pak from:

(http://www.software.hosting.ibm.com/clubopendoc/partpaks/webpak.html) http://www.software.hosting.ibm.com/clubopendoc/partpaks/webpak.html

Lotus SmartSuite 96

If you bought a computer from IBM and got Lotus SmartSuite 96 for Windows with it, you can get the halfway native OS/2 version of the SmartSuite for free -- plus media, shipping and handling fees of course.

Find the little yellow booklet, fill in the form in it and send it off to Lotus.  You will also be able to get SmartSuite 97 for OS/2 free, when (and if) it becomes available.  (Lotus has announced it for 97-Q4, so expect it sometime in 98-Q1.)

SmartSuite 97 is an excellent suite, with superb user interface, especially if you have 3 arms, since you can't (easily) change and assign hot-keys and must use the mouse for most tasks.  If you are tired of waiting check out new StarOffice v4.0, especially if you are used to MS Office.

You can find more informations about SmartSuite 96 for OS/2 at:

(http://www.lotus.com/smartsuite/) http://www.lotus.com/smartsuite/

and Star Division's StarOffice v4.0 at:

(http://www.stardivision.com/) http://www.stardivision.com/

although the useful info can only be found at their German page at:

(http://www.stardivision.de/) http://www.stardivision.de/

(But it's in German, of course.)

NetREXX v1.0

NetREXX is a third derivative of REXX designed by the creator of original REXX - Mike Cowlishaw.  IBM maintains two versions of the BASIC programming language (VisualAge for Basic and LotusScript) and REXX users didn't want to let them to catch up, so besides classic REXX and Object REXX (both included in Warp 4) we now have this third incarnation.

Let me tell you, this time they have really done it right!  NetREXX has some very nice additions to the language; it is object-oriented (but not compatible with OREXX or even classic REXX, for that matter) and what it produces is plain (almost) readable Java source code!  You can compile that source with a Java compiler (included with OS/2 v4 and recently updated -- see above) and you'll get Java byte-code executables that will run on any platform that supports a JVM (Java virtual machine) -- which means practically everywhere.

NetREXX is free and is available from:

(http://www2.hursley.ibm.com/netREXX/) http://www2.hursley.ibm.com/netREXX/

TCP/IP

Updates for the OS/2 TCP/IP stack are not included in FixPak 1, so if you need them (only people who access the Internet do) you're on your own.  A good place to look is:

(service.boulder.ibm.com/ps/products/tcpip/fixes/v4.0os2/latest/) ftp://service.boulder.ibm.com/ps/products/tcpip/fixes/v4.0os2/latest/

but you'll only find four files there:

telfiles.exe - replaces some files for telnet component (client and server)
ftpfiles.exe - same for FTP component
lprfiles.exe - same for lpd (TCP/IP printing) component
dhcpczip.exe - new DHCP client

If you need these, get them, but most people don't.

There is also a file named STACK40.ZIP at Peter Norloff's OS/2 Shareware BBS (you can reach it by telneting to bbs.os2bbs.com), or at:

(http://www.os2bbs.com/) http://www.os2bbs.com/

The file is in "File area 29 - fixes and patches from IBM".  There is no note about the source, but the ZIP file contains two self-expandable bookmanager archives which implies that they came from IBM.  (Norloff's BBS is a reliable source, so I wouldn't worry.)  Some 'core' TCP/IP files (like TCP32DLL.DLL and SO32DLL.DLL) are included, so it is obvious that they fix some TCP/IP stack issues.

HyperAccess

If you use Hilgraeve's HyperACCESS Lite communications program that comes with OS/2, you can check:

(http://www.Hilgraeve.com/dzproducts.html) http://www.Hilgraeve.com/dzproducts.html

to download the latest version from their site.

Internet Connection Secure Server

Version 4.2 of this product has been released, "including enhanced Java and CGI support, HTTP Version 1.1 compliance, SNMP management, and SSL V3 support for secure transactions".  You can now download and try the secure version.  Its security features will stop functioning after 60 days but you are permitted to continue using the server itself, although without SSL and on unsupported basis, but with built-in proxy cache server.  You can get your free evaluation copy from:

(http://www.ics.raleigh.ibm.com/) http://www.ics.raleigh.ibm.com/

Note: the READ.ME file says you need APARs IC15782 and IC16223, but I was unable to find them. There is some mention of IC16223 in the STACK40.ZIP file, but it looks like they forgot to search/replace every instance of that string while preparing the READ.ME file for the new APAR.  However, it is a proof that it exists, or that it existed -- somewhere.

Important problems not yet solved

I think I have covered most of the important updates, but I want to spend some time talking about one important problem without a known solution -- so far.

As I said before, there is no full support for Windows 95's file-system(s) yet.  Many users expected to see this in Warp 4 but it was not there and IBM recently closed one APAR regarding users' inability to use the new FAT32 with OS/2 (VFAT partitions at least could be used, although without long file names).

There is currently ongoing development of a (free) 32-bit driver for accessing Linux file system partitions and as a part of the developer's efforts to port his 16-bit Linux file system driver to 32-bit architecture, he created, "a package that allows the implementation of 32 bits OS/2 device drivers (BASEDEV and DEVICE) as well as 32 bits Installable File Systems (IFS)."  He (Matthieu Willm) isolated that part from his Linux ext2fs IFS driver, and called it 'mwdd32'.  Some talented individual could use this work as a starting point for full-featured 32-bit FAT32/VFAT driver, and doing that, become a very respected member of OS/2 community.

Major update(s)?

What can we expect next?  Nobody knows for sure.  Maybe someone will ask IBM what new features and improvements will be included in the next version of OS/2 -- so we can preview what everyone else will use in several years on Windows NT.  I hope someone will ask them -- I'm just not brave enough.

-----

In addition to the above links, here are some other good references and starting points for updates/fixes:

OS/2 Warp Master Update List:

(http://www.cincyteamos2.org/masterupdate.html) http://www.cincyteamos2.org/masterupdate.html

IBM Personal Software Product Service Listing:

(http://ps.software.ibm.com/enhanced.html) http://ps.software.ibm.com/enhanced.html

PSP Service APAR Database:

(http://service2.boulder.ibm.com/pspapar) http://service2.boulder.ibm.com/pspapar

IBM and Lotus software download library:

(http://www.software.ibm.com/download/) http://www.software.ibm.com/download/

OS/2 Device Driver Pak On-Line:

(http://service.software.ibm.com/os2ddpak/index.htm) http://service.software.ibm.com/os2ddpak/index.htm

-----

(nenad@fon.fon.bg.ac.yu) Nenad Milenkovic is an experienced OS/2 user, specialized in networking and communications, and the best known OS/2 advocate in Yugoslavia.  He has published two books and now writes for mainstream print computer magazines, but welcomes the opportunity to contribute to a magazine read by people with similar views and preferences as his own.

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

What's New from EurOS/2	- by Martin Brampton

-----

OS/2 Warp's Netscape Navigator Game plan: Leapfrog 
 
PSP's Netscape Navigator team is leapfrogging over the latest release of Navigator and is porting Netscape's next revision while it's still in development.  When the work first began to create an OS/2 version of the popular browser, they used the finished 2.0.2 product, even though coding of the next version, 3.0, was well under way.

In determining what level of code to use in the OS/2 Warp 4.0 launch product, the team wanted the most stable version available.  With several successful Netscape browser deliverables now available, the PSP team is ready to undertake the increased complexity associated with porting software still under construction.

David Kerr, key developer on the project, says, "Working closely with Netscape to get the source code as they develop it allows OS/2 Warp to catch up significantly."  Skipping over version 3.0, the current market version, will enable delivery of OS/2 Warp support to be within a few months of Netscape's release for other operating systems.
 
Cost of Ownership Solutions?

Forrester Research has issued a report critical of Microsoft and PC suppliers.  They suggest that vendors are exploiting concerns over cost of ownership to boost their own revenues.  Although the PC industry is now paying more attention to these issues, according to Forrester Research, it is still not acting in the interests of users, but is using the concept to sell more products.

Forrester cites Microsoft's promise of improved software distribution and centralised file format control in Office 97.  "Java looms on the horizon.  Microsoft and company are scrambling to address the high cost associated with managing hordes of PCs in order to stop the network computer in its tracks".  Users are advised to be wary of cost reduction promises that will not be realised for years.

IBM invests heavily in Java  
 
IBM has set up teams of developers in China, India, Latvia and Belarus as part of its effort to speed up the creation of Java components for business applications.  The company is developing "VisualAge Part Packs" which are Java Beans based.  Corporate developers can use these to build their own applications to meet needs in areas such as HR, project management or marketing.

This IBM project is positioned as complementary to the San Francisco project, which targets Java frameworks for financial and logistics applications.

According to Mark Pilger, IBM's director of software development for emerging markets, "With applications in the Internet space, speed to market is a major factor in acceptance.  Each team will work on a different set of Java component suites, but they will all conform to a common specification and methodology."

Research company, IDS, commented that, "IBM has to be seen to be committed to Java.  It has to have applications that can be downloaded from its platforms if the NC is to replace the PC."

IBM's UK Hursley Park laboratories have now completed the port of the Java Virtual Machine to IBM's platforms and to Windows 3.1.  Hursley is continuing development to provide "Just In Time" compilers to improve performance (see following article).

Java Virtual Machine Oil Check  
 
The Java Competency Skill Center located in Austin, Tx. reports that measurements, using the industry standard CaffieneMark 2.5, indicate the latest revisions of PSP's Java 1.02 outperform the Navigator Java 1.02 environment on the Windows platform.

At COMDEX/Fall '96, IBM assured the press and customers that OS/2 Warp was a vital product worthy of further investments.  The major proof point of the claim was the introduction of the beta for an improved version of the Java Virtual Machine for OS/2 Warp 4.  Donn Atkins, VP of Marketing for PSP, promised an extensive Java rollout continuing through 1998.

The current Java 1.02 OS/2 beta delivers a 45% performance improvement over the Java package shipped with OS/2 Warp 4.0.  The PSP Lab, working closely with the Hursley Java Technology Center, is continuing to focus on performance and expects to make additional improvements prior to the general availability of Java 1.02.  Tim Thatcher, Java Business Program Manager states, "We've made significant strides in both functionality and performance in a very short period of time."

Even without an official beta feedback process, PSP has been monitoring the forums to get a fix on the public response since November.  Kelvin Lawrence, one of the original PSP developers focused on Java, says, "The beta testers view it as functionally complete and stable."  There had been a problem with the Just in Time compiler but the team fixed this towards the end of last year and the compiler is now quite stable.
 
-----

EurOS/2 Contact Information

We would like to encourage anyone working to achieve successful OS/2 implementations to participate in EurOS/2.  All communications are despatched electronically, via Internet or CompuServe.  To receive regular information from EurOS/2, please let us know your first name, last name, company, job title, address, telephone, fax, Internet e-mail address, CompuServe e-mail address, and indicate which form of communication you prefer.

EurOS/2 can be contacted in the following ways:

o  Internet at (euros2@ibm.net) euros2@ibm.net
o  Worldwide Web at (http://www.moorestephens.com/euros2/) http://www.moorestephens.com/euros2/ where all past newsletters and other publications are searchable
o  CompuServe to Martin Brampton 100303,2007
o  Fax to Martin Brampton, Moore Stephens, 0171-246-6055
o  Telephone Martin Brampton, 0171-334-9191
o  BBS Moore Stephens Infoline, 0171-334-0337
o  Mail to Martin Brampton, Moore Stephens, St Paul's House, Warwick Lane, London EC4P 4BN.

-----

(euros2@ibm.net) Martin Brampton is the organizer of EurOS/2 and editor of EurOS/2 Magazine, published by e-mail and WWW.

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

Warp 5 and Other Rumours	- by Martin Alfredsson

-----

Welcome to the highly unofficial FAQ of the next generation of OS/2 (Warp 5?).  Very little is known of this product as of yet but I have tried, and will continue to try, to gather all the information I can put my hands on.

Please note that most features/timetables discussed here are rumors and might never surface.

Remember, I need YOU to provide me with more information.  If you know anything, please send me an (jma@jmast.se) e-mail.  You can be anonymous but I will probably trust your information more if you tell me who you are.  I won't reveal anyone's identity if they don't specifically tell me to do so.

Many thanks to the people who have provided me with information so far.

Warp 4.x

Though this is a FAQ for Warp 5, some helpful people inside and outside IBM have given me hints about Warp 4.1 too.  Since I think this is of great interest as well, I choose to include it here.

Warp 4.1 was to go into beta in early January and is planned to be released near the end of the first quarter of 97.  Sources indicate that they will release 4.1 as a quiet upgrade to 4.0 that is to replace the current packages, but with no big marketing campaign.

Warp 4.1 will contain the SMP level-2 kernel.  This kernel is to be used for both UNI (one processor) and SMP machines which means that Warp 4.1 will probably also be SMP enabled.  We have all heard that development of the Warp kernel was stopped, and this is probably the reason -- the SMP kernel will replace the "old" UNI kernel.

IBM is probably combining Warp and Warp server into one common codebase (like Windows NT) to simplify development.  You will still be able to get different versions but they will share a common code base.

There will be lots of Java and Web stuff in 4.1 and the IBM Web-server might be included in 4.1 with TME 10 Workgroup and so on.  IBM has stated that they have several (20?) different projects going on that will surface as add-ons to Warp 4 and that they will upgrade the codebase between major releases (before Warp 5) with these new things (cited from a InfoWorld interview with John W. Thompson).

There is a new CHKDSK in development.  It is supposed to be 32-bit and much faster than the current CHKDSK; it will be a VERY welcome addition for HPFS users!  OS/2 for the Power PC already contains this new HPFS code, so it will be more or less a straight port from OS/2 for the PPC.  It has been hinted that the new CHKDSK is to be released this year ('97) but I suspect that it will be included into Warp 4.1.

Warp Server 5 - "Hawk"

Hawk is NOT to be confused with Warp 5.  Hawk is the next version of Warp Server and it will probably be based on the Warp 4.1 codebase, NOT the Warp 5 codebase.  It now has a (still unofficial) release date set: May 26, 1997.

Warp Server will contain the SMP level-2 kernel that is to be used in Warp 4.1.  Again, this kernel is to be used for both UNI (one processor) and SMP machines.

Warp Server will be much enhanced with new Multithreaded device drivers (probably from OS/2PPC), spinlock instead of semaphores, no more serialized I/O, scalable to 64 CPUs, raw file I/O, full failover-support and lots more.  Clustering of servers will also be supported.

IBM is going to aim for 100% scalability per CPU.  It's not possible to reach all the way to 100%, since synchronization between the processors will restrict this, but IBM is trying to get as close as possible.

There is an official (though internal) IBM document of three pages in length describing the next Warp Server.

Warp 5 - "The Mega Release"

So you still believe that Warp 4 was the last version of OS/2?

Get a grip and get ready for a reality check.  IBM has officially announced that the next version of OS/2 will be released in early 1998 and they describe it as "the mega release".

The internal name for future versions (Microkernel based) is "Portable OS/2", as it has been called for many years; since Warp has become a household name, however, IBM is planning to use that name officially.  There have been persistent rumors that Portable OS/2 has been running on RS/6000 machines for more than six years now but that IBM, for several reasons, never made a product of it.

The difference between the names "Warp 5" and "Portable OS/2" is that "Portable OS/2" is the name of a line of operating systems running on different platforms while "Warp 5" (and, before that, OS2PPC) is a specific version of "Portable OS/2".

The name "Warp 5" is not a firm name though, and I have had indications that IBM wants to drop the name since Paramount (owners of the Star Trek series) want too much money from IBM for them using the Paramount-owned trademark "Warp".

There is an (internal) document called "Project Notes for Warp 5" that contains the currently planned features for Warp 5.  There have been a few leaks, but Warp 5 is a moving target and things on the drawing board today may be scrapped for different reasons.

The release date is also a moving target (software development, folks!) -- the plan at PSP is to be able to release in the first quarter of '98.  There will probably be Intel, PPC and DEC Alpha versions, all depending on what chips are "hot" then.  Just like Warp 4.1, it is to be client/server; that probably means that PSP will create a single version that will be used both for Warp Server 5 and Warp Client 5, which will make things much easier for both IBM and end-users (one FixPak for both version).

Most new features in OS2PPC will probably be reused in Warp 5 so please, if you run OS2PPC today and know the difference between Warp 4 (Intel) and OS2PPC send me more information!

OS2PPC has NOT, I repeat, NOT been scrapped.  It is the foundation for Warp 5 and there have been several FixPaks released for it.  Features likely to show up in Warp 5 (or even in Warp 4.1) are: OO device drivers, multithreaded device drivers, DOS and Win-OS2 through a processor emulator and a REAL asynchronous message queue.

Warp 5 is also being called Merlin2 (probably the official internal name).  Rumors say that IBM should have alpha code working by September.

Rumoured Features

Full human-centric features are interesting stuff.  What we see today is primarily VoiceType in Warp 4; VoiceType is also included in OS2PPC since the PowerPC has DSP encoding in the hardware.  We might see other things like voice output (text to speech), software agents and an operating system that adapts to the user in future versions of OS/2.  There will probably also be a more adaptable/customizable user interface.

Warp 6, yes Warp 6!

There is a (strictly IBM internal use only) list of projects that IBM is working on, each project of which has its own directory at a certain internal site.  At this site, there are two directories, Warp 5 and Warp 6.

That's all that is known about Warp 6 for now but it's good to know that we'll have OS/2 for many years to come, (and maybe long after Microsoft's demise!).

Want to know when there are updates ?

For more information and rumours on upcoming releases and OS/2 development, check out the "(http://home1.swipnet.se/~w-13247/warp5.htm) Unofficial Warp 5 FAQ".  If you want to know when this page is updated, send (jma@jmast.se) me an e-mail with the text W5FAQUPD in the subject line and your e-mail address as the text of the message.  (I will NOT confirm your e-mail, I get too many for me to have time to do that, sorry.)

-----

(http://home1.swipnet.se/~w-13247/warp5.htm) The Unofficial Warp 5 FAQ is maintained by (jma@jma.se) Martin Alfredsson, the president of JMA Software Technologies and the principal designer of WebNavigator and MultiNote.

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

The Chronicles of John Ominor	- by John Ominor, The Inhuman

-----

The time of March Madness is upon the world, but instead of taking the shape of millions of couch potatoes glued to their televisions watching collegiate basketball, it takes the shape of recent upheavals in the OS/2 and Windows worlds.

I am John Ominor, The Inhuman.

First, there was the initially disturbing news that (timur@io.com) Timur Tabi, is leaving IBM in search of greener pastures.  He has ended his quest at (http://www.crystal.com/) Crystal Semiconductors.  Ominor quickly dispatched a Servitor to question Servitor Tabi on the possible repercussions of this departure on OS/2 device driver development.  Servitor Tabi believes that life will indeed go on, no doubt at a lower level since Servitor Tabi's destiny is to master device driver programming to a degree without peer.

Excellent, Mr. Tabi.  The Inhuman respects your dedication.

Servitor Tabi has further stated that only two individuals will continue his grand work.  This causes concern to some who fail to understand how two individuals can maintain and enhance Timur's work.  Do not fear.  John Ominor knows with an unparalleled certainty that once the major foundations of even a large software project are laid down, software bug fixes and enhancements can be achieved with a much smaller effort.

In addition, one of OS/2's own now lies in wait under the skin of a major sound card player.  As an example of how Mr. Tabi will prove useful, consider how invaluable Martin Warnett's efforts at Netscape Corporation have been.  He, in order to remain worthy of The Inhuman's continued favor, keeps the OS/2 community abreast of developments within Netscape to show that Netscape truly has OS/2's best interest at heart.

SAMS, in a move that defies belief, has decided to cancel the upcoming OS/2 Warp 4.0 Unleashed.  All Ominor's servitors should, as soon as possible, send electronic messages stating the there are many of us who are eagerly waiting to purchase OS/2 Warp 4.0 Unleashed and that they should change their minds.  Remember though, my legions, those outside of OS/2 have thin skins.  Tread lightly.  Perhaps a statement that it would please The Inhuman to see this book would help.  Now, exploit the multitasking power of OS/2, take several minutes, and send mail to (cskaggs@sams.mcp.com) Cari Skaggs and  (jkoch@sams.mcp.com) Jeff Koch.  Do it now, then continue to absorb my wisdom.

It intrigues The Inhuman to no end how some fail to see the greater picture.  One rather notorious Windows advocate who plagues the comp.os.os2.advocacy likened Creative Labs' recent move to that of a sinking ship.

Foolish.

It is a pity that currently, Creative Labs engages in such half-witted behavior, but in the end, their actions will be proven irrelevant.  Remember, one of the world's largest software developers, Microsoft,  does not develop for OS/2 Warp.  Yet, millions of OS/2 users still manage to accomplish a great deal.  Ominor, himself, currently utilizes a Sound Blaster 16 Plug and Play sound card and, despite Creative Labs, it continues to function.  "But what about their new AWE64 cards, almighty Ominor?"

What about them?  The same wails of doom were uttered when Creative Labs adopted Plug and Play technology, and behold, OS/2 Warp 4.0 was ready.  Sound Blaster may be the de facto standard in the industry, but there are many cards available.  Take advantage of them.

The Inhuman will take a moment to express his satisfaction with the recent release of FixPak 1 from IBM.  The install, using the automatic installation facility was near-flawless.  The program failed to completely remove the FixPak files, but otherwise, all is functioning perfectly.  Most impressive.

John Ominor would be remiss if he did not mention, at least in passing, the plague of security problems currently attacking Windows 95 and even the mighty Windows NT.  Imagine, the supposedly C-2 secure Windows NT 4.0, compromised by a simple web browser.  And now, it has been reported that if one uses the Netscape Navigator for an electronic mail client with the Shockwave plug-in installed, an unethical individual can retrieve mail from your system.  Even deleted mail.  Even from behind the protective walls of a firewall.  That is if you have any files left after the Internet Explorer bug finishes "realigning" your system.

Most amusing.  Though not more amusing than Microsoft's attempt to call attention to Java's recent "evil" bytecode bug that all, save Microsoft, believe that few individuals could exploit.  Or their stating that their woes are indicative of the Internet industry.

Finally, one of the members of chauvet.com has decided to relieve himself of OS/2 Warp 4.0 and join the Window NT world due to so-called attacks made against him by other OS/2 users.  This constant infighting is beginning to bore The Inhuman, especially unprovoked attacks made against those that John Ominor finds worthy.  The Inhuman must insist that it stop.  Now.  Surely, the considerable energies of chauvet.com can be channeled into more productive conduits.  Ominor, himself, frequents the chauvet.com home page, but control and civility must be reestablished.

If any do not agree, by all means, feel free to engage The Inhuman in the realm of Cyberspace, itself.

-----

The origins and current plans of (dmccoy@mailhost.mnsinc.com) Ominor are known only to Ominor.  He is indeed a mystery to all.  Save The Inhuman.

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

February's Top Selling Applications from Indelible Blue

Note: The following list represents only the top selling OS/2 applications.  OS/2 Warp and OS/2 Warp Connect are not included in the rankings.

This Month	Last Month	Product				Developer
1		2		FaxWorks Pro v3		Global Village
2		10		BackAgain/2 Pro		Computer Data Strategies
3		1		SmartSuite 96			Lotus		
4 		5		BackMaster			MSR Development
5		6		System Commander		V Communications
6		3		Partition Magic			PowerQuest
7 		6		IBM AntiVirus			IBM
8(tie)		4		Process Commander		Stardock Systems
8(tie)		8		Hobbes CD-ROM		Walnut Creek
9		7		Colorworks			SPG
10(tie)		11		UniMaint			SofTouch Systems
10(tie)		8		QuickMotion			Practice Corporation	
11(tie)		-		TalkThru			Software Corp. of America
11(tie)		-		GammaTech Utilities		SofTouch Systems	
12		-		WordPro			Lotus
13 		14		Performance Plus		Clear & Simple
14 		12		Taxdollars '96			BT&T Technology
15		-		Seagate Backup			Seagate
-----

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

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

February's Top Selling Applications from J3

This Month	Last Month	Product			Developer
1		1		Lotus SmartSuite 96 for OS/2 
2		--		Lotus Word Pro & Freelance Graphics 96 for OS/2 
3		5		MD+F Animated GIF Writer for ColorWorks v2 
4		8		MD+F Plug-in for ColorWorks v2 - Renders 
5		6		MD+F Effects for ColorWorks v2 - Volume 1 
6		7		Partition Magic 
7		2		FaxWorks Pro v3 Upgrade 
8		10		System Commander 
9 (tie)		4		Seagate Backup for OS/2 
9 (tie)		9		LinkWiz 
10		3		QuickMotion 
-----

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

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

February's Top Selling Applications from BMT Micro

Note: The following list represents only the top selling OS/2 shareware applications.  The (http://www.bmtmicro.com/catalog/cdrom.html) BMT Micro CD is excluded from the figures below to avoid distorting the results.

This Month	Last Month	Product			Developer
1		2		PMMail			SouthSide Software
2		1		InJoy			F/X Communications
3		3		PMView		Peter Neilsen
4		6		HomePage Publisher	JBC Software
5		--		OpenChat/2		Max Mikhanosha
6		8		EmTec Network Suite	EmTec Innovative Software
7		5		ScreenSaver		Siegfried Hanish
8		4		ZOC			EmTec Innovative Software
9		10		FTP Browser		Jason Rushton
10		--		Blanker			Peter Wansch
-----

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

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

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

Corporate Sponsors of OS/2 e-Zine!

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

(http://www.4ctc.com/) CrossTec Corporation
NetOp Remote Control Software for OS/2 with cross platform support to Windows (either direction).  Free evaluation copies available.

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

(http://www.emtec.com/) EmTec Innovative Software
EmTec Innovative Software produces state-of-the-art OS/2 ISDN, modem and telnet communications software.  OS/2 Magazine and Inside OS/2 1995 award winner.

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

(http://www.hotinc.com/) House of Technology, Inc.
Your Canadian Source For OS/2 Applications.

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

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

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

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

(http://www.Mount-Baker.com/) Mt. Baker Software
Developers of Money Tree, a full featured personal financial package for OS/2.

(http://prairie.lakes.com/~oberon/) Oberon Software, Inc.
Home of TE/2, TE/2 Pro and other fine OS/2 programs.  Specializing in telecommunications and the Internet.

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

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

(http://www.cfw.com/~shenan/) Shenandoah Equipment Co.
Providers of lifetime warrantied name brand simms, laptop and printer memory at competitive prices.

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

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

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Copyright 1997   -   Haligonian Media
ISSN 1203-5696