                      WordPerfect InfoCentral v1.0
                      Reviewed by Michael J. Gibbs


	In this day and age, most folk are no more likely leave their office without their 
daily planner or organizer than they would walk out the door without the clean 
underwear that their mother always warned them to wear. In order to keep better track 
of the events and people that shape our lives on a daily basis, an increasing number of 
computer users are turning to Personal Information Managers (PIMs).
	WordPerfects latest entry into this field is InfoCentral. Launched under the new 
WordPerfect MainStreet banner, InfoCentral should help them get established in the 
home computing market.
	InfoCentral (WPIC) takes advantage of the graphic power of Windows to present 
the user with a visually familiar model for tracking events, meetings and appointments; 
the ubiquitous daily planner.
	The Calendar provides not only a visual look at your appointments, but also 
allows you to keep an ongoing to-do. Changing days on the Calendar is as simple as 
clicking the mouse at the top corner of the pages. A nice touch is that the monthly 
calendar shown on the daily screen will indicate dates with Calendar objects that have 
been scheduled and not removed.
	One of  WPICs features that I appreciate most is how alarms are handled for 
upcoming Calendar objects (events, appointments, meetings, etc.)  As with most other 
PIMs, you can set an alarm to go off a varying number of minutes beforehand. 
WordPerfect was thoughtful enough to include a button in the pop-up alarm screen that 
allows you to ask the program to remind you again a certain number of minutes later. 
Calendar objects that have passed their deadline while the InfoCentral program was not 
running, will cause WPIC to notify the user of the missed events when you next start the 
program.
	The only complaint that I had about this section of the program is that in the 
revision reviewed here, there was no way to add recurring Calendar objects. This 
oversight  has been fixed in the version 1.1 update. The version update will also include a 
more complete manual and better on-line help as well as the ability to import/export data 
to and from WordPerfects GroupWise applications.
	While the Calendar uses a familiar visual cue to help guide the users, the rest of 
the programs modus operandi  will be quite foreign to most. All the data contained in 
the information bases (iBases) that you will create are based upon objects.
	An object is simply a record of an individual, company, event or whatever else 
information you need to store in your iBase. Each iBase may be made up of any number 
of different data types. The Personal iBase included in the package consists of objects 
like Airlines, Persons, Organizations, Project, Products, Tasks, Schools, Events, etc.
	The power of this object-oriented approach to data is that you can create 
connections between various types of objects, and include appropriate data within the 
connection itself. Say you have a Rolodex card with the all the information you normally 
would need on Steve Jones from the ZikZak company. With InfoCentral, you would 
create a Person object on Steve Jones, an organization object for ZikZak and then 
connect the two objects together with Steve Jones title within the ZikZak company.
	By properly setting up your iBase, you will find a wealth of new information that 
can be derived from your existing data, just by looking at the information differently.
	To find information buried within your iBase, InfoCentral will allow you to 
search on partial strings. The results of your search are shown in tree format where you 
can open up the branches to reveal various layers of connections to other objects within 
the iBase.
	Other features include auto-dialing (with a modem if you have one attached to 
your voice phone line) and telephone call logging. The program will also allow you to 
establish a connection between objects within the iBase and files created by external 
programs.
	The iBase concept is so versatile that 4 iBases full of content are included with 
the package covering topics like wines, travel and contacts within the computer world. 
For most homes, this package could eliminate the need for a standard database program 
as InfoCentral allows the user to create any type of iBase that the users could need.
	When it comes down to whether InfoCentral is for you, you must remember that 
PIMs are just that, personal (like the underwear that we discussed earlier.)  Everyone has 
their own preferences. Some like bikini underwear, putting flash and visual appeal before 
comfort and function while others would rather wear a comfortable old pair of briefs. 
Boxers, the undergarment equivalent to this product, are popular because of their 
freedom and versatility. InfoCentral will most likely succeed for the same reasons.

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