CompuNotes Notes from The Cutting Edge of Personal Computing May 1, 1998 Issue 116 +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= To subscribe, send an e-mail to listserv@peach.ease.lsoft.com SUBSCRIBE COMPUNOTES-L FirstName LastName To unsubscribe, send an e-mail to listserv@peach.ease.lsoft.com SIGNOFF COMPUNOTES-L For Contact and Other Information See Bottom of Publication! +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= CONTENTS My Notes: 1=> CompuNotes Notes, Ebay - Ecommerce that Works!, mailto:pgrote@i1.net 2=> This Issue's Winner! News: 3=> News of the Week, mailto:pgrote@i1.net Reviews: 4=> Product: Calendar Shop by Expert Software, home Reviewed By: Robin Nobles, mailto:smslady@netdoor.com 5=> Product: Dark Earth, game Reviewed By: CJ Lewis, mailto:cjl@dimensional.com 6=> Product: How to Access the Federal Government on the Internet by Bruce Maxwell, book Reviewed By: Herbert Lidstone, mailto:lidstone@eznet.net 7=> Product: Disk Mapper 2 by Micro Logic, utility Reviewed By: Timothy H. VanderWall, mailto:THVanderWall@usa.net --- BEGIN ISSUE 1=> CompuNotes Notes, mailto:pgrote@i1.net Ebay and My Addiction . . . "Hello, my name is Patrick Grote and I am addicted to Ebay." "Hello, Patrick!" ...and so it would be if there were a 12 step program for Ebay addicts. What is Ebay you ask? Ebay (http://www.ebay.com) is the hottest example of ecommerce today. No, it isn't some corporate rah-rah site. It is one huge flea market/garage sale/store rolled into one! Ebay is an on-line auction house. People just like you and me from around the country post items for sale on the system and then other people bid on those items. Auctions run 3, 5 or 7 days. Ok, so you have heard about on-line auctions, right? You haven't experienced on-line auctions until you check out Ebay. Ebay has several features that other on-line auctions attempt to duplicate, but can't. These include: * Tons of Categories. * Auto Bidding. * User Support. * Feedback System. Ebay features categories for everything from Computer Hardware to Beanie Babies. From rare coins to consumer electronics. From rare books to fine art. Anything you could possibly be interested in can be found on Ebay. You can access these categories by drilling down into them (COMPUTERS:HARDWARE:DRIVES:IDE) and then looking at the individual listings. This allows you to see everything for sale in certain category. You can apply really cool filters such as NEW TODAY, which shows new items for sale in the last 24 hours, ENDING TODAY, which shows items whose auction will be ending in the next 24 hours and GOING GOING GONE which shows which items will be ending in the next 3 hours. The neat thing about these filters is that they stick, so you could look at all the categories in the COMPUTER heading that are NEW TODAY. If you have an idea of what you would like to find you can use their simply sensational search page. Try it now. Click on the link (http://cayman.ebay.com/aw/search.html). Now, enter something you would be interested in buying. I really like the band Van Halen and am always on the lookout for memorabilia or import CDs. Type in Can Halen and look at all the items for sale on Ebay. Found something you liked? Well, once you register you can bid on items. Registering is as easy as entering you name, address and phone number. No, this information is not used by Ebay to bill you or to beef up a mailing list they will sell later. This information is used to help buyers and sellers communicate better. Anyway, once you have found that special Beanie Baby, click on the item. You are them presented with the bidding screen. Bidding is pretty easy to understand. Let's say that Beanie Baby currently has a price of $5.00. You really like it, but don't want to pay more than $10.00. You enter a bid of $10.00. When you refresh the Beanie Baby screen you'll notice that your bid isn't for $10.00, but for $5.50. Whoa! What happened to the other $4.50? Ebay is keeping it secret! Why? Well, what if the next person comes along and sees the item you want and bids $6.50? Ebay will automatically increase your bid to $7.50! You don't have to pay attention to it at all! Of course, if someone does outbid you Ebay will send you a mail message reminding you that someone bid higher. All of these great features would be worthless if you didn't have guides to help! Ebay sports a great, personal support system in the form of SUPPORT@EBAY.COM. Sending a message to this address gets your a response ASAP! There are also public message boards which you can post questions in real time and get answers from support personnel and other Ebay users. Perhaps the most unique feature of Ebay is the feedback system. One of the problems with buying items from strangers across the country is you have to be a trusting soul. You have to trust that the Commodore Monitor, Cordless Phone or Pete Rose baseball card you are buying is being represented in the condition it is in and that the other person will send the merchandise when they receive your money. The feedback system allows users to track the history of a seller or buyer. When a transaction is complete the buyer and seller are encouraged to post positive, neutral or negative feedback. Obviously the more positive feedback someone has the more trusting you can feel. You can also decide not to do business with people who have more negative than positive feedback. Ebay displays the seller's feedback rating with the item for sale and also displays the bidders feedback when a bid is entered. This is great, but what if someone does stiff you for the $33.00 you sent for the STAR WARS ORIGINAL FILM POSTER? What recourse do you have past negative feedback? Well, remember you registration information? The address and phone number? You can request that through Ebay. Ebay will then send you the personal information of the seller. To be fair Ebay sends a note along to the seller letting them know you have requested the information. I have made over 500 transactions on Ebay and have been burnt once. That is pretty good considering I have bought everything from a used computer system to Genuine Vermont Maple Syrup! I heartily encourage everyone to use Ebay! If you are a buyer you can pick up incredible bargains on items that are hard to find or don't want to pay retail for. And who among us doesn't have a closet full of old, useless computer gear? Make some money and sell it on Ebay! Ebay does charge a slight fee (25 cents) to list your item and then they take a small percentage of the price it sells for. Guess what? I have some items for sale on Ebay right now. Need some computer stuff? Check out my auction by clicking on the link (http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?MfcISAPICommand=ViewListedItem s&userid=pgrote). 2=> Winner! This week's winner: jhentsch@STBBS.COM. 3=> News and Game Bits, mailto:pgrote@i1.net or mailto:dr2web@sprynet.com Is Anti-Virus Software a Waste of Money? http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19980429S0001 Why in the Heck do I Want a Web Based Office 99? http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19980430S0019 Ok, So Maybe Microsoft Does Stifle Competition . . . http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/catalog.html Let Us Sell Windows 98, Please . . . http://www.crn.com/dailies/weekending050198/apr30dig09.asp John Dvorak Doesn't Want to Pay for Windows 98 http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/insites/dvorak/jd.htm 4=> Product: Calendar Shop by Expert Software, home Reviewed By: Robin Nobles, mailto:smslady@netdoor.com System Requirements: 486SX or higher PC; Win 3.1 or 95; 256 color VGA or SVGA; 8 MB of RAM (16 preferred; CD-ROM drive; 6 MB hard drive space (25 to store complete program on your PC); mouse; printer. MSRP: $14.99 Calendar Shop does just what it says: it allows you to create personalized calendars for every occasion. Do you ever purchase a ready-made calendar and realize it doesn't work for you? Are you tired of adding the same things over and over again to your calendar? Do you need to prepare a calendar of events for a local club or organization? Calendar Shop may be just what you need. Installation was simple. You're given the choice of full installation, which takes 25 MB of space and allows the program to work more efficiently, or 6 MB of space and operate off of the CD-ROM. When you run the program for the first time, a Quick Tips screen appears to help you get started. It walks you through setting up a calendar for the first time by supplying a series of dialogue boxes that ask you questions about your calendar. This is all there is to creating a new calendar: Select File New; Enter a file name; Choose the look or style of your calendar; Select holidays you wish to include; Enter repeating events. At this point, your calendar appears, and you're able to fill in additional events as you choose. Let's back track to cover some of the features. The program offers a whopping 30 different calendar styles to choose from, including Hollywood, Island Getaway, Neon, Office Elegance, and Sunset Sailing. You can choose holiday motifs, simple styles, or very complex with a multitude of graphics and colors. From there, you can choose a background for your calendar from a variety of choices, such as Rainbow, Flag, Flowers, or Rainforest, or no background at all. If you would like to insert a graphic, you can position it at the top or bottom of your calendar page. Or, you can add a border around your page. One of the fabulous features of this program is the ability to choose holidays from numerous countries. You can add holidays from Israel, Canada, the United States, and so forth. This would be extremely helpful to someone who does business in foreign countries and is planning a trip there. Or, teachers and journalists would find it beneficial as well. Another useful feature is the Event Manager, which allows you to enter repeat events such as anniversaries, birthdays, exercise classes, meetings, medical appointments, social events, etc. With this feature, you can enter an event one time (by filling in a series of boxes), and the program will enter those events throughout the calendar without your having to do it manually. After you make your selection, you're brought to what looks like a desktop where you can continue to add events to the calendar or make any changes. When you're adding events to the calendar, you're working in the "Fill Mode." You simply click on the date in which you want to add something, and a yellow box appears. You type in the information and hit enter, and it appears on your calendar. Of course, by clicking on an event and hitting delete, you can erase any events entered in error. In the Design Mode, you can add clip art and banners to your calendar. If you take aerobics on a certain day, you can add an aerobics graphic to that date. Or, let's say you're going on a vacation for several days. You can apply a banner that marks through those days and says, "Vacation!" You can also change the shape and colors of the calendar. If you have your own clip art or photographs, you can import them into the program as well. The program allows you to drag and drop items, resize items, and right click to bring up another menu with additional features for making changes. If you want to add large text to any part of your calendar, simply click on the large "T" in the toolbar. Customize the text with the font of your choice. You can also add a small calendar on your page to show the past or upcoming month. Here's another nice feature. You can highlight any day by clicking on Day Highlighter, then selecting a color. That date will be colored in, effectively highlighting it for you. With this program, you can create a weekly, monthly, or yearly calendar, an event list, or a daily planner. Calendar Shop's help section menu offers a quick tutorial of the program, a visual guide to the menus, a troubleshooting guide, information on how to use the program, interface/tools, and even a section that allows you to install AT&T WorldNet Services on your computer. The program is simple enough for children to use and could be quite effective in helping them to get organized or in keeping track of the events in their lives. The program is easy to set up, easy to use, and I recommend it. Expert Software, Inc. http://www.expertsoftware.com 5=> Product: Dark Earth, game Reviewed By: CJ Lewis, mailto:cjl@dimensional.com Reviewed on: Pentium Pro 200 MHz, 48 MB RAM, Matrox Millennium 4 Mb video card (game 32k color mode), 8X CD-ROM, Windows 95, Pro Audio Spectrum 16 sound card, MS Sidewinder game pad, 60.1 Mb installed System Requirements: Pentium 75 MHz, 8 MB RAM, VGA (game 256-color mode), 4X CD-ROM, DirectX supported sound card, Windows 95 MSRP: $49.95 Excerpt taken from the Dark Earth manual: "Dark Earth is our Earth, three centuries in the future. But far from being the happy, glowing future we might hope for, this is a ravaged, icy, merciless world. The days are perpetual twilight while the nights are shrouded in utter darkness." In the near future the Earth will be devastated. The cataclysm, a collision with a comet, will encase the planet in a blanket of dust and dark. Temperatures will plummet, the plants and animals will perish, and humanity will be all but destroyed. In the decades that follow, the survivors congregate under areas in the dust cloud, which are thin enough to let sunlight through. Few and far between, these areas give rise to the rebirth of civilization and the cities which house it. As the third millennium approaches, the cities, called Stallites, house the new order of humanity and its predominant religion. The sun, the visible provider of light and life, is now worshipped by mankind. The social order which arises from this religion puts the Sunseers, the priests who worship the Sun God, the Great Solaar, at the top of social hierarchy. The Sunseers teach, make offerings, and run the Stallite absolutely. Anyone who crosses them is exiled into the Darklands and condemned to almost certain death. At the right hand of the Sunseers are the Guardians of Fire. They are the might of the Stallite and its protectors. They are responsible for keeping the city safe from intruders and carrying out the will of the Sunseers. The Sunseers and the Guardians of Fire are the two most powerful castes in the Dark Earth universe. There are, however, five distinct castes among the light dwellers, as the Stallite inhabitants are referred to. The other three castes are the Builders, the Providers, and the dregs, the Scavengers. They make up the majority of each Stallite's population and provide the toil and sweat which allows the cities to endure. And endure they do. But is it any wonder, that in a world such as this, some of the light dwellers may harbor dark thoughts? Or that some of them may resent the rule of the Sunseers and the worship of the light? "Sun God, bless me with your rays," is a prayer of Arkhan, a Guardian of Fire, and the character you play in the world of Dark Earth. After a trouble-free installation, the game begins with a movie which provides some history and a glimpse of what is to come. When the movie ends, you, Arkhan, awaken in bed and are ready to start the new day. The first part of the game involves learning the controls, getting used to the way the game unfolds, and touring Sparta, your Stallite. Until Arkhan get his orders and carries them out, the game won't progress past this stage. You will be offered a chance to spar with Zed and Phedoria, comrades in arms, in order to learn combat. I recommend you do this to get used to the combat commands. Arkhan has various modes you can switch to at will. They are light, dark, and combat modes. Arkhan's behavior is different depending on which mode is active at the time. In 'light' mode you are basically a nice guy. In 'dark' mode you are a jerk and a bully. And in 'combat' mode, well, you get to kill people. Anyone you want, in fact, if you have the skill. This is where a game pad really shines over the keyboard. There is also an auto-combat feature which theoretically allows Arkhan to fight without your help so you can concentrate on the game's story line. In fact, the auto-combat feature doesn't work very well and Arkhan bites the dust quite a bit. Since you can only save the game at areas displaying the symbol of the Sun God, called Rahals, you are going to have to learn to fight well. There is never a Rahal near enough to a combat location to make saving the game during a fight convenient. Don't worry though, Dark Earth has some interesting dialog. Each person you talk to behaves differently depending on what mode Arkhan is in. 'Dark' mode leads to lots of fights, and switching to combat mode while talking to someone is a good way to get killed. The game offers a useful feature of being able to replay every conversation you've ever had. You can also replay any past cut scenes. As a first-person shooter addict, I wanted to play this game because it was something different. The Dark Earth manual not only has basic game information but the bulk of the book is about the history, society, and basic operation of the world and its people. The story is quite involved and since it spans two CD-ROM's, quite complicated. Imagine, a game with a well-thought-out story. Like I said, I wanted to play something different. Also different are the backgrounds in Dark Earth. They are all pre-rendered. This means each scene is a background displayed from a fixed camera angle. Pre-rendering the backgrounds is not only about making the performance of the game better, it allows the backgrounds to be truly artistic and much more detailed than would normally be possible if they were generated on the fly. The characters, props, and ambiance are the only objects which do have to be generated. What I call ambiance is the game designers' attempt to fool you into thinking you are looking at a room, or a hall, or some other space, rather than at a background with some characters drawn on it. They do a good job too. In the opening scene, there is a chain in the foreground and Arkhan moves around in the room behind it. The designers provide other depth cues as the game goes on with other objects and by simulating perspective as Arkhan moves away from your viewpoint. The well-animated characters gene Unfortunately, the pre-rendered backgrounds introduce an aspect that breaks up the continuity of the game. Each time Arkhan leaves the current scene, a new background has to be displayed. This means the screen blanks out, sometimes for several seconds. The 300 MB install option may reduce this delay. I recently played Blade Runner, marketed by Westwood, and they provide scene transitions by moving the camera. As your character steps out of the scene, the camera dynamically moves from its current fixed position. Even though the scene transitions detract from the game, there is plenty going on to keep your attention. The story is engrossing once it gets started. This happens after Arkhan takes up his post in the Great Temple and protects the head Sunseer from assassination. During the assassination attempt, Arkhan is poisoned and changed into a monster. It is as this monster that Arkhan must continue on, searching for a cure for himself and trying to solve the greater mystery of what is happening in Sparta. Each new fight speeds the poison through his veins. Each new step brings him closer to death or salvation. It's the same for Dark Earth itself, death or salvation. Each day brings more competition for your gaming dollar. I enjoyed Dark Earth because I was looking for something different, and I'm sure some of you are looking for the same thing. The trouble is Microprose wants a premium price for a game with little replayability. That is clearly not justifiable when there are other games available for the same price and whose life expectancy is more than one play. I do recommend that you try Dark Earth but not a Dark Earth was written by Kalisto Entertainment and published by: Microprose http://www.microprose.com http://www.darkearth.com 6=> Product: How to Access the Federal Government on the Internet by Bruce Maxwell, book Reviewed By: Herbert Lidstone, mailto:lidstone@eznet.net MSRP: $23.16 US at AMAZON.COM How to Access the Federal Government on the Internet is a soft cover book with 282 pages that describes over 600 federal government Internet sites. The book, "explains how to access the site, describes what each one offers, provides searching tips for selected sites, and offers advice on where to start a search." Not all the federal government sites are listed. For instance, the Coast Guard is not mentioned. The book does list, "some of the most useful sites, some of the more interesting sites, and some sites that are just intriguing examples of what's possible for the federal government to do with the Internet." Most are web sites with a few pertinent mailing lists, some FTP sites and some gopher sites. The book is organized into subjects; Access to Information, Agriculture, Arts and Museums, Business, Trade, and Economics, Children and Families, Computers, Defense, Demographic Data, Education, Emergency Response and Fire Safety, Energy, Environment, Foreign Affairs, Government, Health and Science, History, Jobs and Employment, Law and Justice, Science and Technology, Space, and Transportation. Once the reader becomes familiar with the subject categories, it is easy to select the right subject for perusal. It is somewhat disconcerting to find a postcard insert in the front of the book to sign up for a standing order to receive the annual edition. Because of the volatile nature of the Internet, printed media covering the Internet becomes outdated very quickly. The solution is to offer periodic revisions, acceptable for a book that costs under $30. This book is an excellent resource to find federal government information. It is easy to read and filled with good advice. "Usually, the federal government information ... on the Internet is accurate." The author's advice is to double check with other sources if you are depending on the information for a "legal case or million-dollar deal." The author also advises, "If you are serious about searching for federal government information, a good librarian remains your most valuable resource." The author's advice could be generalized to: all serious research could use the assistance of a good librarian. Congressional Quarterly, Inc. http://bmaxwell.home.mindspring.com/iopen.html 7=> Product: Disk Mapper 2 by Micro Logic, utility Reviewed By: Timothy H. VanderWall, mailto:THVanderWall@usa.net Reviewed on: Pentium, 100MHz, 48Mb RAM, Windows 95 System Requirements: Windows 95; a 3.5" disk drive; a 486 computer or higher; 600 Kb free disk space; and 8 MB RAM. MSRP: $49.95 Did someone say something about "the greatest thing since sliced bread"? Or maybe "a better mousetrap"? Well, folks, I think we may have found a utility that lives up to both of those descriptions. Disk Mapper 2 from Micro Logic is one of the handiest and most intuitive utilities that I have run across in a long while. In Disk Mapper 2, Micro Logic has created a very visual way to see how all the space on your hard disk drives is used, and to let you do something about it. It allows you to see at a glance where all the space is being used by directory. The way it does this is by portraying your disk drive as a series of rectangles, each directory or file being one rectangle. These rectangles are proportional to the whole of what you are viewing at the time. For example, if you are viewing the whole of your C: disk, each rectangle would be sized to be the fraction of C that the directory/file takes up. I was amazed at what it showed me the first time I fired it up. I was able to save nearly 30 megabytes of space without even trying. I discovered that my teenage son had made a collection of 498 audio and video clips on his desk top, instead of making shortcuts to them (about 13 Mb). I also found out that my daughter had gone crazy with the Paint program and had created quite a few "masterpieces" in a folder on her desktop (about 2 Mb). I found remnants of several products that I THOUGHT I had uninstalled, but that had left files hanging around after the process (about 5 Mb). And, I discovered that the cache directories of Internet Explorer were hidden and contained about 10 Mb of files (some read-only) that I really didn't need. I was able to deal with most of the files directly from Disk Mapper 2 and clean up my C-drive in short order. The display is so intuitive that my 10-year old was able to understand the file and directory relationships. Installation was simple and straight forward. The only thing you need to do after kicking off the install (A:SETUP) is select the install directory (if you don't want the default) and enter your registration key. I was up and running in less than 3 minutes. After playing with the product for about half an hour, I realized that I had forgotten to downloaded the update (to make it version 2.1) from the Micro Logic website. This took about 8 minutes at 28.8, and with just a one-minute update process, I was up and running again. Disk Mapper 2 is a VERY graphical program, so it will be difficult to convey to you what it actually looks like. Therefore, I ask you to close your eyes (figuratively, of course) and picture in your mind's eye your computer screen. It is divided into two windows. The smaller left-hand window looks very much like the tree structure of Windows Explorer, except that it displays file names along with the directories. The right-hand window looks like nothing you have ever seen before! It is a melange of color--red, yellow, hot pink, turquoise, blue, green and grey--tens, maybe hundreds, of rectangles within rectangles, each trying to portray to you some information about the contents of your hard drive. As you concentrate on the rectangles, you begin to see a pattern. The large red rectangle is labeled "C:\"; the yellow rectangles inside of it are labeled things like "WINDOWS" and "Program Files"; and the hot pink rectangles inside of the yellow "WINDOWS" rectangle are labeled "SYSTEM" and "FONTS", etc. You notice something else--the larger yellow rectangles are at the upper left of the red one, and the larger hot pink rectangles are at the upper left of the yellow ones. Now open your eyes again and I will try to explain what you have seen. Disk Mapper 2 has up to 7 different levels of colored rectangles, each level being a subgroup of the previous. For example, the "C:\" rectangle is red and contains all the subdirectories and files in the base directory; the "WINDOWS" directory is yellow and contains all the subdirectories and files in the \WINDOWS directory... By the way, if you don't like the default color scheme, it is a simple operation to choose one of the 23 other color schemes, or make up your own (I personally prefer the "soft" color scheme). There is even an option to make 3-D rectangles, but I found them distracting and not at all helpful. As I said earlier, the rectangles are sized proportionally to the rectangle that is the "base." The larger entities (subdirectories or files) appear in the upper left of the parent rectangle and the smallest are in the lower right. This way, you can tell at a glance what the relative file sizes are. Well... Now you HAVE all those rectangles. What can you DO with them? Initially, the currently selected "base" is the root directory, but by double-clicking on a directory rectangle, you can select that subdirectory as the "base"; when you do this the rectangle "grows" to fill up most of the right-hand window. If you double-click on a file, it "executes" it; that is, it calls up the program associated with its file type. As you click in files, by the way, the corresponding file name is highlighted in the tree structure on the left, and as you pass the cursor over files or directory rectangles, the status bar at the bottom of the screen lists information about that particular entry. Disk Mapper 2 also supports full "drag and drop" within Disk Mapper 2 and between it and other applications--for example, Windows Explorer. I did notice, however, that it doesn't automatically refresh the display when files are moved around using another program; but hitting the standard F5 (refresh) key initiates a reread of the directories and refreshes the display. Disk Mapper 2 also has a built-in zip/unzipper to help you zip up files that you haven't used much; the purpose, obviously, is to save disk space (the name of the game). This zip feature evidently uses Phil Katz's algorithms, since it appears to be compatible with programs like PKZIP and WINZIP. Of course, you may also do all the "normal" things that one can do with file, like delete and rename and anything that normally appears on your right-click menu. If you need the Windows Explorer to do some particular work, it is only a click on the tool bar away. Disk Mapper 2 is also loaded with options and features. You can select colors, fonts, minimum rectangle size, whether you want to see the free space graphically, and on and on. You aren't restricted to looking at every file, either. You can decide to view only files over a certain age, of a certain type, larger than a selected size, with certain extensions, never used after creation, etc. There is also a search option, if you are looking for a particular directory or file. Another nice feature, called flat viewing, eliminates displaying the multiple levels of files and directories and shows you just the level you are at; this is handy when the number of entries makes viewing too confusing. Another "feature" of Disk Mapper 2 is that it is small enough to be stored on a HD 3-1/2" floppy disk. You do need, however, your license key the first time you use it on a machine. Remember, though, that this doesn't give you permission to install it on multiple machines. If you have Windows NT, there is a beta version of Disk Mapper 2 available. If you run Windows 3.1, you can buy Disk Mapper 1. You may download any of the Disk Mappers from Micro Logic's web site, www.miclog.com, but the program is time-limited until you pay for it. All in all, I found Disk Mapper 2 to be a very intuitive, easy-to-use, and helpful utility. I found very few glitches or difficulties. The one question I had about the product was answered via return E-mail from technical support within two days. The help file is nearly a duplicate of the manual, so you never have to go hunting for documentation. I have used Disk Mapper 2 regularly at the office for several weeks to find files and to keep the mess that accumulates on my hard drive to a minimum. It has been a great help. Disk Mapper 2 is not the only utility you need, but it is a great tool to have in your computer software toolkit. Micro Logic WWW: http://www.miclog.com +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= Managing Editor: Patrick Grote -- mailto:pgrote@i1.net Assistant Editor: Writer Liaison: Doug Reed-- mailto:dr2web@sprynet.com Assistant Editor: Robin Nobles, mailto:smslady@netdoor.com Archives: ftp://ftp.uu.net/published/compunotes/ Website: e-mail: mailto:notes@compunotes.com Want to Write for Us?: mailto:writers@compunotes.com fax: (314) 909-1662 voice: (314) 909-1662 +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= 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)1998 Patrick Grote .