CompuNotes
Notes from The Cutting Edge of Personal Computing
July 21, 1997
Issue 88

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CONTENTS
My Notes:
1=> Do you believe in Prayer?, mailto:pgrote@i1.net
2=> This Issue's Winner!

Reviews:
3=> The Big Basics Book of Word For Windows 95, book/applications
by Sandy Eddy Schnyder, David Haskin, and Ed Guilford
Reviewed By: Don Hughes, mailto:dhughes@wwdc.com
4=> Fighter III by Mission Studios - game/simulation
Reviewed By: Mike Gallo, mailto:gallomike@aol.com
5=> Product: PartitionMagic 3.0, utility/disk
Reviewed By: Doug Reed, mailto:dr2web@sprynet.com
6=> Special Edition, Using Microsoft Office Professional 97,
book/applications By Rick Winter & Patty Winter
Reviewed By: Don Hughes, mailto:dhughes@wwdc.com

7=> Clickables!

--- BEGIN ISSUE

1=> Do you believe in Prayer?, mailto:pgrote@i1.net

About a month and a half ago, I related the story of my sister-in-law 
to you. I was discussing this with my mother-in-law who has the faith 
of a believer. She wondered if we felt the many prayers people offered 
to us. My wife and I think we did. She then was wondering what would 
it be like to focus prayers and thoughts to others in need.

To help her out I have posted on our web site a letter from my mother-
in-law. It concerns a friend of hers who has cancer. to visit the 
site, click on me http://www.compunotes.com/prayer.html. I'm not 
printing the letter in CompuNotes, because I want to focus this to 
people who truly want to help. As you visit the site, please leave me 
an email message at mailto:pgrote@i1.net if you would like to pass 
along a thought or prayer. Please, any thoughts you can pass on would 
be very much appreciated!

2=> Winner!
No winner.

3=> The Big Basics Book of Word For Windows 95, book/applications
by Sandy Eddy Schnyder, David Haskin, and Ed Guilford
Reviewed By: Don Hughes, mailto:dhughes@wwdc.com
Price: $19.99 USA / $26.99 Canada

Wading through a book, the size of a standard sheet of paper (8.5 x 
11), and one and a half inches thick, plus 590 pages in length might 
strike fear in the hearts and minds of most experienced computer 
users. However, not to fear beginners as this is a vastly illustrated 
guide! The authors and the publisher proposed this book as: "The most 
complete guide for beginners and easy because its illustrated. Easy 
illustrated lessons, Helpful hands on examples, Fast answers to your 
questions, Plus 101 quick fixes."

The authors take the user on a guided tour of Microsoft Word for 
Windows 95, from installation (disk or CD-ROM) to the creation of a 
Press Release. Pages' four to thirty-nine cover the basics of learning 
Word, such as: How to use Words menus, using dialog boxes, toolbars, 
scroll bars, understanding the status bar, and getting help in Word.

No complex "Techno-Talk" spoken in this guide, each step is 
illustrated, and all actions explained in easy to understand and 
numbered ( Step 1, 2, 3, etc.,) text format.! The following is a step 
by step example on how to magnify or reduce your view of a document 
minus the illustrations of course:

1. Display a document in Normal view. Then open the View menu and 
select Zoom.

2. In the Zoom dialog box, click 200%. Notice that the Preview box 
shows a sample document at the selected Zoom value. Then click OK. 
Word magnifies the document and changes the percentage in the Zoom 
drop down list.

3. Click the Zoom Control drop-down list and select Page Width. This 
allows you to see all the text from the left to the right margin.

4. Click Page Layout View button to change to page layout view. Click 
the Zoom Control drop- down list and select Whole Page, which along 
with Two Pages is available only in Page Layout view.

5. Notice that you can no longer read most of the text. Click the Zoom 
Control drop-down list and select 100%. Then return to Normal view.

In addition to their illustrations the authors have placed all menu 
names and commands or keys the user is to enter into the computer in 
boldface type. The use of boldface type makes following the text and 
working with the examples easier for beginners to understand complex 
word processing operations.

The Big Basics Book of Word, enhances the first time user abilities to 
create or add: Headers and Footers, make entries in the Address Book, 
Import data Base or Spreadsheet information into Word. The beginners 
also learn how to add elements to enrich a document such as: different 
fonts, graphics, text frames, and drawings.

The Section "Present yourself to the World" enlightens the beginners 
on how to: Create a Letterhead, a personal Note Pad, a Flyer, A Resume 
Template, Fax Cover Sheet template, Write a Memo, create a family 
Newsletter, make a Greeting Card, and how to Create a Press Release. 
Most of the "How To" areas are in small easy to follow steps, with 
five to ten steps being the average.

The Chapter 101 Quick fixes covers most of the problems a new Word 
user might encounter creating a document. The last chapter is titled 
"Handy References". In this part, you will find everything you need to 
be able to use Word for Windows 95, without stopping every five 
minutes to check something in help. Instead of confusing techno- talk, 
you'll find easy to use lists, tables, toolbars, command's shortcut 
keys, and key combinations.

Meanwhile the more experienced Word user may find "The Big Basics Book 
of Word for Windows 95" a rudimentary, one must remember that this 
book is written for the beginner. If you are just beginning to use 
Word for Windows 95, then this is a essential book for your computer 
library.

Also if you have a friend or client who is struggling to master Word, 
then I recommend you tell them about this book. The written text 
examples, combined with abundant illustrations will assist any Word 
for windows 95 neophytes, helping to produce professional looking 
documents with ease.

QUE
a division of Macmillan Computer Publishing
201 West 103rd  Street
Indianapolis, Indiana, 46290 USA.
WWW: http://www.mcp.com

Ratings:
End User: Word for Windows 95 beginners (an experienced user may also 
learn a tick or two)
Readability: Gold
User Friendliness: Gold
Quality: GOLD

4=> Fighter III by Mission Studios - game/simulation
Reviewed By: Mike Gallo, mailto:gallomike@aol.com
Reviewed on: Pentium-100, 16MB Ram, 4X CD-ROM, S3 64 bit SVGA 
Requires: 486-66 (Pentium 120 recommended), 8 MB Ram, DOS 5.0 or 
higher, CD-ROM, 30 MB hard disk space, VESA compatible SVGA graphics 
card
MSRP: $50.00

I'm not a flight simulation expert, but I did feel like I was flying a 
real plane in Jet Fighter III. JFIII has just the right level of 
flying detail I think is necessary to make a flying game fun. I don't 
want to spend all of my time worrying over what radio channel to dial 
in or other little details that do not add value to the gaming 
experience.

The basic plot of the game revolves around a rapid deployment force 
aboard the U.N.S Peacekeeper that is deployed off the coast of South 
America. There are various missions to accomplish from simple recon 
and identify to full blown aerial battles and also bombing mission to 
destroy strategic targets. As a pilot in this peacekeeping force, you 
have the choice of flying either the Navy's F-18 Hornet or the Air 
Force's F-22 Lighting II. The latter plane is a little unrealistic 
because the current version of the F-22 is not aircraft carrier 
capable, but who cares, it's only a game.

For novices not familiar with any kind of flying, JFIII will put you 
through some basic flight training. I wouldn't call it a valid pilot 
school but it gives users enough skill to fly the game. The training 
is not easy either. I was killed at least a dozen times before I could 
make it through all of the training.

There are plenty of ways to view the action in JFIII. You can see the 
plane as a pilot would (cockpit view), you can view the game from 
outside your plane, or view it from a fixed point of reference. The 
game designer of JFIII boast that it comes with a very detailed 
graphics of over 2 million square miles of territory. They also claim 
that 32 bit assembly language was used to build the simulations. Well, 
indeed the graphics in JFIII are very impressive. The terrain over 
mountains and the cloud detail in the sky add much to the sense of 
realism. However this realism comes at the price of performance.

I could not play the game at 640 x 480 resolution with all the 
features turned on without a severe penalty in performance. I had to 
drop down to the lower resolutions to get a decent frame rate. That 
was irksome because the cockpit display's words are much more jagged 
and hard to read and the enemy planes become little flicks of specks 
until you get really close. However, the responsiveness of the game 
made up for some of these deficiencies. I did find at times that the 
game would pause because it had to get more data off the CD-ROM drive. 
I really wish there was some sort of cache option so that the game 
could load the data in at a trickle rate without impacting the game's 
performance. Otherwise, the only other suggestion I can give is to get 
one of those 12X CD-ROM drives and hope the delay will be cut much 
shorter. On my computer, the delay was sometimes a couple of seconds. 
That is not acceptable.

There are plenty of other cues in the game to make players think they 
are flying in a real aircraft. Audible warnings occur when the enemy 
launches a missile or achieves radar lock-on. Your wingman (should you 
have one) also barks voice commands and reports over the radio. 
Sometimes the loudness of the voice startled me when I was playing the 
game, it's that realistic.

Don't think that you can pull off super tight turns or bone crushing 
barrel rolls without paying for it. The game keeps track of the g-
force you are placing on your virtual body while flying. As you start 
to push the envelope of your body's tolerance to high g-forces, you 
will start to pass out. As that happens the screen begins to fade to 
white simulating the effect of passing out. For those that want to be 
flying superhumans the feature can be turned off.

Trees, clouds, carriers and these other things are nice, but the real 
meat of the game is dogfighting! In JFIII, you'll find new swear words 
as the enemy will more than likely find you before you can find them. 
After all, these are high-tech planes that have missiles with a range 
farther than the eye can see (on a computer screen). Targeting your 
enemy is just like the real thing. You have to line up several 
reticles to get a missile lock. This is not easy. The instruction 
manual that comes with the game gives some basic maneuvering 
techniques. They are definitely necessary to help get through the 
game.

One thing I'm finding more and more irritating in games is the use of 
motion video. I think it's really neat the first couple of times I 
played the game, but after a while I want to just jump to the place I 
want to go without having all the unnecessary movement. JFIII at least 
has a pull down menu so that gamers don't have to walk through the 
ship, they can jump from point A to B. That still doesn't stop you 
from being subjected to movement within the rooms. A second mouse 
click is required to jump over these and get you directly to the 
desired screen.

With a games like JFIII, you expect users to play the game using some 
sort of joystick. I cannot understand why, the creators would have 
buried the joystick calibration routine inside the game itself. I 
could not calibrate my joystick until I was flying in the plane. I had 
to hit escape, calibrate the joystick and then resume flight. Why not 
put the joystick routine up front in the program?

JFIII also comes with a mini aircraft online encyclopedia of US and 
Russian military jet aircraft. I thought this was really neat. It was 
slick and laid out very nicely. Each plane had photographs, a CAD 
drawing, and several pages of technical info and narrative. My only 
regret was that it did not contain more planes. This is what I call 
fully using the capacity of your CD-ROM! It didn't add a lick to 
gameplay but the game is more enjoyable when you know a little bit 
more about the plane you are flying in.

All in all, JFIII was an enjoyable experience. However, lackluster 
graphics performance, combined with some irregularities in the game 
prevent this game from capturing a gold medal. To get the most out of 
this game I recommend a Pentium 166 system with the fastest CD-ROM and 
graphics card gamers can get their hands on.

Installation: Gold
Usability: Silver
Overall Rating: Silver

Mission Studios
1644 Colonial Parkway
Inverness, IL 60067
Web: http://www.missionstudios.com

Interplay Productions
16815 Von Karman Ave.
Irvine, CA  92606
Internet E-mail:  mailto:Info@Interplay.com
http://www.interplay.com

5=> Product: PartitionMagic 3.0, utility/disk
Reviewed By: Doug Reed, mailto:dr2web@sprynet.com
Requirements: 386, 8MB RAM, CDROM, Windows 95/NT, DOS, or OS/2 2.1+
MSRP: $69.95

I'll be honest. Any utility program that proclaims it can safely alter 
and organize your hard drives makes me nervous. When I got 
PartitionMagic 3.0 to review in the mail, I was curious but also 
hesitant; I have a lot of important data on my hard drives and losing 
any of it would be a disaster. I do keep it backed up for safety, but 
I still get nervous - backups can fail. PartitionMagic's box and 
manual proclaim that PartitionMagic can safely and easily partition 
your hard drive and protect your data without a hitch. Powerquest's 
website is replete with accolades and awards for PartitionMagic, but 
still - I was nervous. Nevertheless, I was curious and I knew the 
value of a good partitioning tool. Luckily, I can say that 
PartitionMagic easily lives up to its claims and is a good, safe tool 
that will make organizing and partitioning your hard drives a snap.

PartitionMagic comes on a CDROM but is not auto-play enabled; you have 
to choose Run from the start menu and ask it to run the Setup program 
on the disk. Once up and running the installation itself is a snap; 
you are given choices about where to install the software and whether 
to install any of the accessory software (the Mover portion of 
Uninstaller). In addition to PartitionMagic and Mover, Drive Mapper 
and a shortcut to Powerquest's website are added to the Powerquest 
program group. The manual that comes with PartitionMagic is good but a 
little confusing; after telling you how to install the software it 
launches immediately into how to partition your hard drive, with no 
discussion about the interface or options in the software. One little 
item that is missing from the manual is the fact that PartitionMagic 
runs from DOS (with the exception of NT and OS/2) and requires 585k of 
conventional memory to run. If you have less than 585k, PartitionMagic 
won't run - period. For my system, I set up a custom config (thank 
you, Microsoft, for one of the few things you really got right with 
Windows 95) and off I went.

Anyone familiar with a GUI interface will be able to quickly orient 
themselves with PartitionMagic's interface, although understanding all 
the information provided by the program will take some reading - 
reading of the manual that is. As I mentioned above, the manual is 
confusing at first, but after the introduction it quickly settles down 
into a thorough explanation of what PartitionMagic is capable of and 
how to do it. For example, PartitionMagic supports FAT, FAT32, NTFS, 
and HTFS file systems (for DOS, Windows95, NT, and OS/2 respectively) 
and explains, in detail, how to configure your system if you would 
like to run more than one operating system on the same computer.

There are two major reasons to partition your hard drives (other than 
to operate two different OSes, something very few people do). First, 
it allows you to organize, having one partition for the OS, one for 
the applications, and one for data. This makes it much easier to find 
your documents or other important files. Secondly, it can save space, 
reducing the cluster size for the various partitions. PartitionMagic 
can do all of this on the fly without having to reformat the drive 
(which is what would be required if you wanted to do this from DOS). 
My system at home has two drives  the original 210 MB and the newer 
820 MB drive. By partitioning the second larger drive into a 
application drive and a data drive, I saved about 50 MB of space. By 
then reducing the cluster size on the application partition, I was 
able to save an additional 100 MB of space. Yes, that's right  I 
saved a total of 150 MB of space. Anyone who doesn't find that amazing 
needs their head examined - especially after considering that all of 
this was done on the fly. Of course, this does change the drive 
lettering, a special concern on a system like mine with two hard 
drives, a CDROM drive, and a Zip drive. Once I exited Partition Magic 
and rebooted Windows 95, I ran the companion Drive Mapper software. 
Drive Mapper is a very powerful little utility that does one very 
simple thing  it searches the registry and drive path statements and 
can make the necessary changes very quickly. For example, I typed in 
that the F drive became the G drive, and a few minutes later it was 
done. Then I ran the same drill for changing the E drive to the F 
drive. Although no mention is made of this in the manual, I would 
highly advise you to start with the last drive and work backwards (if 
I did it the reverse, E would have been changed to F and then F to G - 
resulting in E becoming G). I saw no indication that Drive Mapper 
warned you of this possibility - so be careful! If you need to move an 
application to the new partition, Powerquest has included the Mover 
portion of Uninstaller. Using this tool, applications can be quickly 
and easily moved to the new partition, modifying drive paths and 
registry entries appropriately.

PartitionMagic is a superb utility, an absolute must for everyone 
running a PC computer (especially those running some of today's larger 
drives). The software is easy to use, does what it claims, and appears 
to be very stable. Aside from the one little bug with Drive Mapper 
that I mentioned above, I was extremely impressed with this software. 
PartitionMagic deserves all of the awards that it has earned, and 
deserves something else even more: a place on your hard drive.

Powerquest
1083 North State St
Orem, UT 84057
(800) 379-2566
Email: magic@powerquest.com
http://www.powerquest.com

Installation: Gold
User-friendliness: Gold
Quality: Gold
User: All

6=> Special Edition, Using Microsoft Office Professional 97,
book/applications By Rick Winter & Patty Winter
Reviewed By: Don Hughes, mailto:dhughes@wwdc.com
MSRP: $39.99 USA/ $56.95 CAN.

A new book "Using Microsoft Office Professional 97," by the Que 
Corporation continues their fine tradition of publishing high quality, 
easy to use guides for the computer industry. This book is a heavy 
weight containing over one thousand, twelve hundred and thirty-four 
pages, designed to be use as a desktop reference. However, there are 
hundreds of illustrations throughout that assist the reader in 
mastering the new Microsoft Office Professional 97.

Que's "Using Microsoft Office Professional 97" is divided into eight 
chapters:

1. Features You will Only need to learn Once.
2. Using Word.
3. Using Excel.
4. Using Multimedia in Microsoft Office.
5. Using Power Point, Using Access.
6. Integrating Microsoft Office Applications
7. Internets-Intranets, and Workgroups.

The authors cleverly use conventions in the margins of the book to aid 
the reader such as: A price tag (the best of 97) so one can quickly 
see the new office 97 features.

* NOTE-paragraph format that indicates addition information to avoid 
problems
* TIP paragraphs format to suggest methods of executing a procedure.
* CAUTION a paragraph format warns the reader of hazardous procedure 
such as delete.
* TROUBLESHOOTING-anticipate common problems...and then provide you 
with practical solutions.

One should note that Using Microsoft Office 97 by Que, is not intended 
to be an instruction manual for Windows 95. To quote the authors "This 
book assumes that you are familiar with Microsoft Windows 95 or 
Windows NT, but not familiar with all the applications in the Office 
suite."

Many leading software vendors, Microsoft, Corel, Lotus, have placed 
their core programs, word processing, spreadsheet, database, and 
presentation products into multi- packages or suites. Contained within 
the Microsoft Office Professional 97 software suite is: Word, Excel, 
Powerpoint, Outlook, Access, Bookshelf Basics, Office assistant, and 
Office Binder.

Microsoft in Office 95 offered an application called "Schedule+" that 
was an appointment, to-do list, scheduling manager. Office 97 takes 
the organizational day- planner into the 90s with the additional new 
redesigned program called OutLook. They added such features as: 
unified e-mail address list, fax numbers for quick faxing, message 
management, calendar planning, meeting scheduling, to-do list 
management, and note taking. The user range of Outlook is very broad, 
plus it has the ability to handle: unformatted text, rich text format--
different fonts and colours, OLE, e-mail, faxes, and a contact 
manager.

The authors compiled excellent section of the book "What's New with 
Office 97," explaining each of the suites new features listed per 
software program--word, excel, access, etc. Any reader who is familiar 
with the many functions of the early versions of office will find this 
chapter an invaluable resource.

In Que's "Using Microsoft Office Professional 97", the process of 
naming and saving files, changing the font, size, type, and page 
layout are covered in great detail complete with screen shots to guide 
you. An example of the best of 97 (icon looks like price tag):

Another form of highlighting is adding Text Borders. With Word 97, you 
can apply borders to selected text just as you do paragraphs or 
tables. First, select the text; then, use the Borders tool on the 
formatting toolbar to apply the border. You can also use the Format, 
Borders and Shading command to see all the new borders you can chose 
from. For more information on applying borders, see chapter 11, 
"Working with Tables & Borders."

Another example shows how the authors anticipate and explain 
problem(s) one can encounter when working with Office 97 with their 
Troubleshooting tips: I have changed the font, font size, font style, 
and alignment of the selected text, and now I want to change the text 
back to its original formatting.

Undo the formatting using the Undo drop-down list in the Standard 
toolbar. To remove formatting, you also can select the text first and 
then press CTRL+SHIFT+Z.

Other topics covered in Office 97:

* Create hyperlinks.
* Navigate, publish your Intranet to the web.
* Create professional documents and presentations.
* Insert charts, graphics and video.
* Create database and reports.
* Customize office programs.
* Examples.
* Tips.
* Troubleshooting.

Que's "Using Microsoft Office Professional 97" covers every aspect of 
the new office version with easy to follow illustrations and plain 
English text--no difficult to comprehend terms. The well-placed 
Illustrations, Notes, Tips, Troubleshooting, the Best of 97, all 
deigned for ease of use by the experienced Office user and the novice.

If you or your company has bought Office 97, you will find this book 
and invaluable resource to using the many features of the software 
package has to offer. This is one book you will use over and over to 
aid your successful mastering of Microsoft Office Professional 97.

Que Corporation
201 W. 103rd Street
Indianapolis, IN, 46290 USA
1-800-428-5331
http://mcp.com/que

Readability: Gold
Illustrations: Gold
Quality: Gold
Intended Audience: Experienced Office user to Novice.

8=> Clickables!

The new CLICKABLES debuts next week! Stay tuned!

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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.compunotes.com/main.html>
e-mail: mailto:notes@compunotes.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
PC computing world with comprehensive reviews, news, hot web sites,
great columns and interviews. We also give away one software package
a week to a lucky winner for just reading our fine publication!
Never dull, sometimes tardy, we are here to bring you the computing
world the way it is! Please tell every on-line friend about us!
CompuNotes
B440
1315 Woodgate Drive
St. Louis, MO 63122
notes@compunotes.com
(C)1997 Patrick Grote
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END OF ISSUE

