CompuNotes
Notes from The Cutting Edge of Personal Computing
June 21, 1997
Issue 82

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CONTENTS
My Notes:
1=> READ THIS NOW! Our new website and links contest . . ., 
mailto:pgrote@i1.net
2=> The End is Near, Commentary by Patrick Grote, mailto:pgrote@i1.net
3=> This Issue's Winner!

Reviews:
4=> Product:  Crystal INFO; Workgroup decision support application.  
Version 4.5 - applications/business
Reviewed By: Richard Malinski, mailto:richard@acs.ryerson.ca
5=> Product: Internet InfoScavenger - periodical/internet
Reviewed By: Doug Reed, mailto:dr2web@sprynet.com

7=> Clickables!

--- BEGIN ISSUE

1=> Notes . . .

We are close to unveiling our new web site. Yes, we secured a domain 
name and everything . . . 

As part of our new site we want your links! If you have a link to us 
on your page with the new web address we'll link to yours. To spur 
people to help us do this I am giving away a software suite that 
includes:

PC Handyman by Symantec
Partition It by Quarterdeck
Kiloblaster
Thunderscape by SSI
Internet Utilities by Starfish Software

Even if you have a current link with us you need to resubmit your 
link. When you send your email message to me at mailto:pgrote@i1.net 
make sure you include your fully qualified page name and the page name 
that has our link on it. 

Page Name:
URL:
Contact Name:
URL Where CompuNotes Link will Be:

Doug or I will respond with the exact URL for CompuNotes.

The drawing will be random and will be made by my 7 year old daughter. 
She loves picking names from a hat . . .

2=> The End is Near or How Computers are Ruining our World
Commentary by Patrick Grote, mailto:pgrote@i1.net

Two things happened lately to convince me the end of the golden age of 
PCs is near: Batman and Robin and Microsoft devouring WebTV. 

Yes, I am a big Batman fan. Been to every premiere and actually think 
Michael Keaton was the last great Batman. It was with much 
anticipation I looked forward to last Friday. My lovely wife had 
bought two tickets for Batman and Robin as a Father's Day gift. As the 
days grew near I heard more and more about the movie. Roger Ebert 
eluded to the point of my commentary when he said, "My prescription 
for the series remains unchanged: scale down. We don't need to see $2 
million on the screen every single minute." 
<http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/reviews/batman_robin.html> 

Of course, I arrived at the theatre 40 minutes early to ensure a 
decent seat. The theatre was stadium seating and DTS equipped so I 
knew we would enjoy the technical aspects of the movie. My wife 
arrived during the promos and then the movie started. From the opening 
scene throughout the whole movie there were two constants: my wife 
trying to stay awake and the inordinate amount of computer generated 
garbage passing as "special effects". In my book special effects are 
just that, special. If everyone has them they aren't special. Batman 
and Robin was filled with boring, computer generated candy that was an 
absolute bore to watch. It didn't add to the movie, in fact, it 
detracted. 

As we drove home I began to think about all the movies I have seen 
lately. Almost all of them featured special effects for special 
effects sake. All of which were aided by computers. Whether the scenes 
were rendered in a computer or the explosions on the set were timed by 
computers, they all had computers associated with them. 

I then started thinking where will it end? Of course, I then saw Steve 
Balmer's speech from PC Expo where he blabbered about wanting "Windows 
everywhere" again. <http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,11639,00.html> 
Then I started thinking about Microsoft's recent purchase of WebTV. 
<http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,9469,00.html> Couple this with the 
previews of Memphis that have included channel like capabilities and 
you have all the makings of a integrated PC/TV using the digital 
broadcast transmission format. 
<http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,11017,00.html> Microsoft has 
basically said 1998 will be the year of the PC/TV. 
<http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,10189,00.html>

Great! Just what I want . . . Windows 95 reliability and scalability 
on my TV . . . Ok, you get one guess on this. Why do people like TV so 
much? THEY DON'T HAVE TO DO A DARN THING TO DO IT! They turn it on and 
watch. Period. They don't constantly look at the paper for statistics 
of the basketball players playing the game. They aren't searching 
through three big books to see what Siskel, Ebert or whomever has to 
say about the movie they are watching. They just watch. 

PC/TV integration will be nice for some folks. The truly weird. The 
truly rich. The truly lame. 

Both of these points just prove that computers have a place in our 
lives, but they are becoming too encompassing. Too intrusive. Too 
utilized. A favorite saying of mine is "People who are good with 
hammers see all problems as nails." Could there not be a better phrase 
to describe the computer in our society right now?

3=> Winner!
This issue's winner: dougdal@INDY.NET

4=> Product:  Crystal INFO; Workgroup decision support application.  
Version 4.5
Reviewed By: Richard Malinski, mailto:richard@acs.ryerson.ca
Requirements: Windows 3.1+, Win95 or WinNT 3.51 with a minimum of 8MB 
RAM but a recommendation of 16MB RAM and 35MB to 54MB disk space 
depending on components installed. 
MSRP: $1350 ($1750 Canadian) for 5 user license

This is a "complex decision support system" that is designed to 
provide timely and secure access to information to members of an 
entire organization through accessing, analyzing and reporting from a 
myriad data sources. These few words can't really do justice to the 
power and flexibility of this product. Crystal INFO's system control, 
data analysis and report generation facilities are daunting at first 
but as you install it and work with the guides, you begin to see its 
value and use. While the product is a workgroup product, you can start 
off small in a standalone operation and grow by adding network 
resources. 

INSTALLATION - The installation procedure enables you to install only 
those components you need on each machine. Ram and hard disk space 
requirements for each component/operating system combination varies as 
noted above. The whole process is direct, straight forward and runs 
without a hitch. I loaded it on a standalone machine (486/66mhz with 
16mb ram running Win3.11) in order to evaluate this product. I didn't 
use the networking features or get into the Win95 details. It should 
be mentioned here that some of the configurations mentioned in the 
Administrators Manual are not yet supported for Win95. 

CONCEPT - Crystal INFO is engineered in three layers for client/server 
environments. The INFO DESKTOP is the end users' interface for easy 
access to workgroup information. The INFO LIBRARY stores shared 
information and data. These first two are used by the end users in 
organizing, analyzing and reporting their information. The INFO 
MANAGEMENT system provides centralized control of the network and its 
resources. It is composed of the APS(automated process scheduler), 
Administrator and Info Server components. This INFO MANAGEMENT system 
is used by the information systems people to deal with such technical 
items as network traffic, database activity, machine use, info views 
for use in the INFO LIBRARY and user access and privileges.. 

MANUALS - Much of this material is readily available in the very 
extensive readme file and accompanying manuals. The documentation is 
excellent. With the four guides walking through the set up, learning 
the rules, evaluating it for your use and understanding the details, 
are easily accomplished. The Administrator's Manual (180pages) 
explains the product and how it can be set up on the network and at 
individual workstations. The Technical Guide (39pages) provides an 
overview of the architecture and capabilities using both text and 
diagrams. The diagrams were cartoon style flow charts or linkages for 
various operations. While they were 'cute', they were a very helpful 
visual presentation! The Design Guide for Reports & Queries (336pages) 
contains the detailed information on creating and designing reports. 
The Evaluation Guide (36pages) is a simple but essential piece of the 
documentation. It provides a step by step example of how three people 
might use Crystal INFO. By seeing the product from the perspective of 
a decision maker, a marketing manager and an information systems 
professional, Crystal INFO comes alive! 

You'll need some time to work through these manuals but it is well 
worth it if you are interested in incorporating a workgroup decision 
tool like this in your organization. 

COMPONENTS - Another way of understanding Crystal INFO is to see it as 
five components. Each of these is described briefly below to give you 
an overview of what they do and what the total product is capable of 
accomplishing. It is essential that you understand the relationship of 
these five because you do not need to install all of them on all the 
machines on your network. 
 DESKTOP. This is the primary user interface, the front end. It gives 
the user access to a range of tools, reports, queries and programs. 
The desktop enables you to view your folders with data; schedule 
requests for immediate, recurring or delayed processing; query your 
data and create reports; and design reports. If the installation is on 
a network there are features (e-mail functionality) which provide 
access to workgroup information for day-to-day decisions and 
information dissemination. 

ADMINISTRATOR. This is the control facility that you use to set up and 
manage Crystal INFO for your organization. You use this component to 
configure the system (security and audit functions); add, modify or 
remove users or groups and their privileges; set up events to trigger 
jobs; or set up calendar or special scheduling templates. Once you 
invoke this function, you simply check the dialogue boxes and the 
system uses the new settings. 

APS. This is the background scheduling engine for Crystal INFO. With 
it you assign jobs to Info Servers on your network(s) for processing 
or controlling jobs. By having several APS's on your network you can 
activate or control access to and use of the Info Servers as you 
determine. To quote the Crystal INFO manual, "It is highly recommended 
that you run your APS(s) on NT machines". 

INFO SERVER. This is a machine that you have designated to run jobs. 
You can dedicate it for a specific purpose or have it used when it's 
not being use for other activities. The number of Info Servers really 
depends on the size of your network and how you want to configure it 
and the access to them by the users. There is great flexibility in 
setting these Info Servers. They are not file servers or database 
servers nor do they have to be system servers. They can be 
workstations available for processing on which to off-load tasks. 

SENTINEL. This component is the network communication heart. Whenever 
you install a Crystal INFO component on a network computer, the 
installation facility automatically installs a Sentinel on that 
computer as well. All messages between Crystal INFO components flow 
through the Sentinel so a Sentinel must be active on every machine 
that will be using Crystal INFO. 

INPUTS/OUTPUTS - Data sources for Crystal INFO can be a myriad of 
databases and spreadsheets. PC databases that can be accessed are MS 
Access, Paradox, Foxpro, ACT!2.0, Clipper, MS Excel, dBASE and Crystal 
data dictionaries and Info Views. With the ODBC (Open Database 
Connectivity) interface you can retrieve data that are in systems that 
use SQL for accessing the data. Examples of these are Oracle, DB2/2, 
Sybase SQL server, Scalable SQL, Gupta SQL and any ODBC data source. 

When the need to export data is required, there are over 15 formats 
available. These vary from ASCII to RTF or DIF formats to tab- 
separated text or tab-separated values to MS Word WordPerfect or Lotus 
123, Quattro Pro or Excel. Once again there is great flexibility in 
exporting data. 

A quote from the Seagate home page says it all, "Seagate Software, a 
subsidiary of Seagate Technology, Inc., develops tools and 
applications in the areas of information management and infrastructure 
management, including network, systems and storage management. Its 
industry leading software solutions are developed as integral 
components of a total data management product strategy supporting all 
major operating environments". Are you a disbeliever? Check out the 
home page for a tour of the next step, CRYSTAL REPORTS version 5, and 
really see what this product can do. 

CRYSTAL, A Seagate Software Company
1095 West Pender Street, 4th Floor
Vancouver,  British Columbia,  CANADA   V6E 2M6
Telephone: 604-681-3435
Facts-on-demand: 604-681-3450
Fax: 604-681-2934
Internet: http://www.img.seagatesoftware.com 

Installation  -     Gold
User friendliness - Gold
Quality of product- Gold

5=> Product: Internet InfoScavenger - periodical/internet
Reviewed By: Doug Reed, mailto:dr2web@sprynet.com
MSRP: $149, one year subscription to both print and web format

Okay, so you decided to take your business on the web. Where do you 
start? How do you advertise? What are the pitfalls to avoid, and can 
you succeed where others have failed? Internet InfoScavenger is a 
monthly magazine designed to answer those very questions in a 
meaningful way for a business looking to profit more and surf less.	 

Ill be honest I had never heard of Internet InfoScavenger until I was 
contacted by Cathy Dupre (Cathy is the Publisher responsible for 
Internet InfoScavenger). Cathy asked if wed be interested in doing a 
review of InfoScavenger for CompuNotes and I said Sure, send it to me 
and Ill do a quick write-up. A couple of days later I got the package 
in the mail and I opened it up to see three of the latest issues. My 
first thought was gee, these issues sure are small for the price! 
Issues of InfoScavenger are exactly eight pages long. But then I 
grabbed a soda and began to read the first issue November of 1996. The 
front page had a Special Report on making your web page show up early 
on search engines. The text was clear and well written, but beyond 
that it was concise, incredibly useful information. The more I read, 
the more impressed I became. 

What Internet InfoScavenger lacks in bulk in more than makes up for in 
content. I would think this would be ideal for the busy businessperson 
trying to balance the rest of their workload while developing an 
Internet presence "Just the facts, maam". The December and January 
issues were also well done, presenting information on marketing tips 
for the web, locating customers, and strategies for attracting people 
to your site. Issues of InfoScavenger come loaded with links to 
additional information on all of the topics discussed a very nicely 
done touch that adds additional value. The issues are also already 
punched to fit nicely into a three-ring binder for easy reference at a 
later date. Check it out! 

InfoScavenger Communications
1153 Bergen Parkway, Suite 473
Evergreen, CO 80439
1-800-449-8533
Email: bizinfo@infoscavenger.com
Web: http://www.infoscavenger.com

7=> Clickables!

Sites Doug and I have come across this week you may be interested in:

Mailing Buddies - Looking for a penpal?
<http://www.mailpals.com/>

Build your own PC - This site shows you how . . .
<http://web2.superb.net/motherboard/build.html>

Internet Lore - Things Floating around the net forever . . .
<http://members.tripod.com/~ElizaZ/>

Computer Complaints - Post Them Here!
<http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~philipg/complaints.html>

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Managing Editor: Patrick Grote -- mailto:pgrote@i1.net
Assistant Editor: Writer Liaison: Doug Reed--
mailto:dr2web@sprynet.com
Archives: ftp://ftp.uu.net/published/compunotes/
Website: <http://www.geocities.com/~compunotes>
e-mail: mailto:notes@inlink.com
fax: (314) 909-1662
voice: (314) 909-1662
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CompuNotes is: Available weekly via e-mail and on-line. We cover the 
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END OF ISSUE
