June 95 First Impressions

Norton Disk Doctor (NDD) is a muscular counterpart to ScanDisk. NDD searches for errors, scouring every nook and cranny on a hard disk, and lets you safely fix them. Data that might be lost during a repair job can be backed up to floppy for added assurance. NDD even checks compressed volumes. The utility has several options, including setting it to recover data automatically or configuring it to let you deal with each data loss separately. If you're accustomed to the mess that CHKDSK /F often leaves behind, you'll be pleased with the way NDD neatly handles hard-disk troubles. Recovered clusters, for instance, can either be kept as files or converted into free space.

Norton System Doctor is a customizable toolbar that provides detailed information on just about any aspect of your system--memory load, disk fragmentation, CPU use, date and time, and so forth. You leave it on the display, or hide it in the applications bar's tray. Right-clicking on one of the toolbar's panes lets you configure it or launch an associated Norton app, such as SpeedDisk with its disk fragmentaton report.

The Windows 95 version of SpeedDisk can take care of defragmenting a drive while handling Windows 95's long filenames.

A new feature, which wasn't fully implemented in the beta I tested, lets you configure it to kick in and run unattended after a predetermined period of system inactivity. So, you can load it and let it remain in the background until day's end.

Then, after everyone's gone home, you can take care of disk defragging without interrupting anybody's work.

SpeedDisk options include the ability to place specific files or directories at the head of the disk or in a specific order. This could help streamline operations. For example, by placing Windows system files at the head of the disk, it'll boot much faster. You can also choose to defragment only the files that are currently fragmented, or to defragment just the disk's free space to facilitate swap-file operations.

System Information yields a wealth of specific data about your system, both hardware and software. This utility's interface has tabs that divide the collected data into categories: system, display, printer, memory, drive, input, multimedia and networking. Each sheet lists relevant information in a hierarchical style similar to Windows 95's Device Manager, but with greater detail. The breakdown for the display hardware and software, for instance, lists all available display characteristics, such as polygons, hardware cursors, hardware font handling, clipping and so on.

Despite its name, Space Wizard isn't a character from Star Trek. But nor is it a disk compression utility; rather, it's a disk management utility. It's similar to Chili Pepper Software's Infinite Disk in that it lets you determine if there are files on your system that you don't need immediately or that could be trashed altogether.

The program has two operational modes: Express and Advanced. The former handles most of the decision making, while the latter lets you select which files should remain and which should go. You tell the program which volumes to check. As it runs, it makes lists of temporary items, files older than a given number of days and anything else that is apparently not being used. You peruse the list and choose the files you want deleted, compressed or moved to another volume. It's a relatively painless process that's explained in plain English.

On the surface, Rescue Disk works the same way as its cousin that is built into Windows 95--with a number of differences. For instance, Norton Utilities' rescue disk is configurable. You can choose which system-configuration elements to save. These can include Unerase and diagnostics information generated by the Norton Utilities, along with any other items you wish to include. Also, the rescue information doesn't have to be written to a floppy. It can be saved to any drive (or writable device) the computer can access.

Even in its beta incarnation, the Norton Utilities for Windows 95 delivers quite a bit.

The program's utilities complement those in Windows 95 and fill in a few of the gaps in the operating system, as well. You can expect to see the program on the shelves soon after Windows 95 is officially launched.

--Info File--

The Norton Utilities for Windows 95

Price: $30 (direct)

In Brief: This new version of the familiar system utilities complements Windows 95 well

and adds some useful features to the operating system.

Symantec Corp.

800-453-1190 ext. NU95,

503-334-6054

Rainbow in a Box

by: Hailey Lynne McKeefry

I loved my 64-pack of Crayola Crayons when I was a kid, but the presentations and reports I do now demand a more professional edge. The Tektronix Phaser 340 provides sharp output that won't disappoint the most critical eye, while offering a larger rainbow of colors than I remember from grammar school. In fact, this box holds 10 times the number of colors found in my old repertoire.

This printer straddles the line between ink jet and color laser technologies. It uses solid ink color sticks and transfers an entire page of wax ink directly onto an image transfer drum and then onto the paper in a single pass. Many ink jet printers, by comparison, transfer liquid ink line by line with a print head that moves across the page. On the downside, the Phaser 340's output can scratch and flake rather easily, much like my grade-school Crayola masterpieces.

At 4 pages per minute, print speed is closer to that of a laser. The price per page falls somewhere between that of laser and ink jet. For 5 percent page coverage, Tektronix estimates that a color page costs about 11 cents and a monochrome page costs about 3 cents. At the same 5 percent coverage, color laser output runs at about 5 cents a page for color and about 2.5 cents for a monochrome page. (The cost climbs to 50 cents for 100 percent color coverage.) Typical thermal wax printers have a fixed cost of about 60 cents per page.

Setting up the Phaser 340 was just about idiot proof. The ink sticks (black, yellow, magenta and cyan) drop easily into slots coded for shape and color. The printer needs no toner or developer, and you can replace each ink stick individually when it runs out. The only other piece I had to install was a plastic maintenance tray that slides into the front of the unit to catch ink spillage. On the software side, I needed to add only the print driver using the Printer applet of the Windows Control Panel. After plugging in the printer and hooking it up to the parallel port of my PC, I was ready to print.

Well, almost .... The Phaser 340 teaches that patience is a virtue. Upon startup, the printer must warm up for at least 15 minutes to melt the ink before you can begin printing. The printer complies with the Energy Star guidelines and needs another five minutes to emerge from sleep mode. The bright color proves worth the wait, though. This unit prints reliably on a variety of A4 and letter-sized stocks, including plain laser paper, bond or label stock. The 200-sheet paper tray can also hold up to 170 sheets of transparency stock, although this slows print speed to 2ppm. It does not print on perforated paper, three-holed paper, legal-sized paper or envelopes. You can also feed single sheets through the manual feed. The unit can handle a sheet about every five seconds.

If you need more paper capacity than the available 170 sheets, you can add an optional lower paper tray assembly for another 500 sheets of capacity. The tray costs $495. The Tektronix CopyStation option lets you use the printer as a color copier. The CopyStation, which costs $1,695, lets you produce multiple color copies from printed originals, as well as reduce or enlarge originals from 25 to 200 percent.

This printer offers 300x300dpi output and comes with 17 fonts. You can expand the fonts to 79 and add 300x600dpi capabilities as an option.

Tektronix's TekColor Dynamic Color Correction provides seven color correction modes. The Vivid Color mode, which is the default setting, chooses the brightest possible colors despite what is on the monitor. Display mode approximates the colors on a standard display screen. Other modes include SWOP Press, which adheres to the Web Offset Publications specification to meet U.S. press standards; Euroscale Press, which matches the Euroscale Edition of Pantone Process Color System Guide to meet European press standards; Commercial Press, which is used to create 3M Matchprint proofs; and Monochrome, which prints monochrome grayscale images for photocopying. The Phaser 340 is Pantone Color Approved, so that it can print documents using process color simulation.

Upkeep on the Phaser 340 is as easy as setup. The front panel displays a message that you are low on ink, and another message if you are out of ink. You can add up to three ink sticks to the well. The printer's demand for consumables is startlingly low. Another upkeep chore is emptying the maintenance waste tray. You do this by popping out the lump of congealed wax ink in the bottom and popping the tray back into the printer.

The ink sticks print approximately 1,000 pages at 5 percent coverage, and the maintenance tray lasts for 5,000 prints. The cost for consumables is fairly reasonable. Three black ink sticks cost $29, while a box of color sticks (three sticks of either yellow, magenta or cyan) costs $79. A box of two maintenance trays costs $195. Long-term maintenance includes cleaning some parts of the printer with isopropyl alcohol, although the printer does a self-cleaning each time it starts up. A cleaning kit comes with the unit.

This printer offers a desktop-friendly footprint of 16 by 20 inches. However, Mom always taught me to share my toys and artistic endeavors tend to be a group effort. Even if you don't intend to share it, the annoying grinding and clunking that accompany printing--which is startling at first and a tad annoying once you get used to it--may convince you to place it in a centralized location. Tektronix offers a Phaser Share Ethernet card that supports Novell NetWare, EtherTalk and TCP/IP protocols, and a Phaser Share Token Ring Card for NetWare, TCP/IP, and TokenTalk networks in Token Ring topologies. The Ethernet card lists for $595, while the Token Ring card costs $895. The unit is covered with a one-year warranty. Technical support is available via a toll-free support hot-line, Tektronix' bulletin board service or an automated fax-back service.

If you were the first kid on your block to run out and buy the giant 96-Crayola box that included neon colors and extra silver and gold crayons, this is the printer for you. I found it easy to get used to having heavy-duty color capabilities at my finger tips. The Phaser 340 provides clear output and bright colors that will add panache to any report, spreadsheet or document. Ink replacement and unit maintenance are so easy as to be a dream. You'll find yourself wanting to add splashes of color to everything you do.

-- Info File--

Tektronix Phaser 340

Price: $4,995

In Brief: The Tektronix Phaser 340 uses solid ink technology to provide 300dpi color printing for about 11 cents per page.

Tektronix

800-835-6100, 503-682-7377

Millennia Breaks Speed Limit

by: Jonathan Blackwood

Think speed. Think Indy race cars, the Concorde, the Starship Voyager, the time it takes after the light turns green before the New York cabbie behind you blows his horn ....

Now think even faster than that, faster than you ever imagined, mind-numbing faster than a speeding bullet fast. Now back up just a smidgen on that flight of fantasy.

The preproduction Micron Millennia 120MHz Pentium mini-tower with EDO (Extended Data Out) DRAM is the fastest Intel-architecture system we've ever tested. By a wide margin. But it's not the fastest system we've ever tested.

We've seen faster DEC Alpha and MIPS-based machines. On most measures, it's not twice as fast as a good 90MHz Pentium system. In my experience, that's the magic threshold. Once you go twice as fast as you're used to, you'll never go back. The Milennia 120MHz isn't quite there. But make no mistake: This machine is not only fast on the WINDOWS Magazine Wintune benchmarks, it's also fast enough to notice the difference in real-life use.

What's so special about this machine? Any 120MHz Pentium should out-MIPS a 90MHz machine by 33 percent or so on a MIPS meter, even if that extra power dissipates when using real-world apps.

I tested the Millennia using WINDOWS Magazine's Wintune benchmarks. Compared to the 90MHz Zeos Pantera machine we tested for our April issue, the Micron Millennia is 30 percent faster on CPU, 32 percent faster on floating-point scores and 26 percent faster on video. You expect that much. But it's also 76 percent faster on the RAM score (an average of both cached and uncached RAM access times) and 73 percent faster on its disk data transfer rate. This speed is the result of two new technologies: EDO (Extended Data Out) RAM, which eliminates the need for wait states, and Micron's SyncBurst SRAM Cache, which performs data access twice as fast as conventional Asynchronous SRAM. If you're wondering where Micron gets the brains and the wherewithal to redesign memory architecture, keep in mind that Micron is one of the two big RAM manufacturers in North America (IBM is the other).

Before you get too excited, though, you should know the Millennia's applications scores weren't as dramatic as its raw benchmark performance. Word and Excel macros both ran 32 percent faster. The Fractal Design benchmark was only 21 percent faster and the AutoCAD benchmark showed only a marginal improvement of 5.6 percent.

Other than the thrill of pure speed, the Micron is an extremely usable machine. It has a quad-speed EIDE CD-ROM drive, 16MB of RAM, four ISA (one vacant) and three PCI (two vacant) slots, a 1.2GB Conner EIDE hard disk, a Creative Labs wave table sound card, two Jensen JPS 45 speakers and a 28.8Kbps internal modem. It also comes with a matte-finish Microsoft mouse, a standard 101-key keyboard with a mushy feel, and a 15-inch ADI monitor. For a machine this nice and this powerful, I'd immediately upgrade the keyboard and monitor.

Like other Microns, the mini-tower case removes with a twist of a thumbscrew. That's a nice touch. Opening the case reveals three 5.25-inch drive bays, with the CD-ROM drive in one of them. There are three 3.5-inch bays, with two in use: one for the floppy drive and the other housing the hard disk. The back of the case contains two serial ports and one parallel port. The Micronics system board features Intel's Triton chip set and a ZIF socket for the CPU. It supports up to 128MB of RAM. The system supports Plug and Play, and the Phoenix BIOS is of the flash EPROM variety, facilitating future upgrades.

Naturally, the Millennia ships with MS-DOS 6.22, Windows for Workgroups 3.11 and Microsoft Bookshelf. It also comes with Microsoft Office 4.3, which contains Word 6.0, Excel 5.0, PowerPoint 4.0 and Access 2.0.

Micron sells direct and offers some of the lower prices available, especially for RAM upgrades. Maybe that's because they manufacture the stuff.

Think speed. Think Roadrunner leaving Wile E. Coyote in a pile of dust. Think Micron Millennia.

--Info File--

Micron P120 Millennia

Price: $4,097

In Brief: The Millennia is the fastest single-processor Intel-architecture personal computer yet.

Micron Computer

800-243-7615, 208-463-3434

Help for Running on NT

by: John D. Ruley

Microsoft's Windows NT Resource Kit has always been a gold mine of tricks, tips and utility software for Windows NT users. The second edition, for version 3.5 of NT, continues this tradition, while adding even more utility software and information.

The resource kit consists of a four-volume set of books, a CD and several diskettes. The programs and other information on the CD alone are easily worth its price. Among the goodies are help files that document all variables set using the configuration registry editor, give technical specs of all NT-compatible network cards, list all Windows NT-compatible hardware and provide troubleshooting help. The CD includes graphical monitors for domain servers and domain browser activity, along with a graphical interface for the command-line batch scheduler.

Some of the other offerings on the CD include the Server Manager for Domains, User Manager for Domains and User Profile Editor tools from NT Server--along with administrative tools for Services for Macintosh NT Server. A complete suite of POSIX 1.0-compatible command-line utilities is part of the package too, including ar, cat, cc, rmdir, sh, touch, vi, wc and many others. There's even an editor for creating your own animated cursors among the many other utilities.

The kit's Computer and Network Administrative Tools will impress network managers. With these tools, you can get user input in batch files, dump the event logs as a text file and disable floppy disk drives as a security precaution. Other management tools include an SNMP MIB compiler, software for operating a network modem pool, a command-line interface to services, a per-user file permissions command-line utility and a secure remote command-line.

The long list of utilities continues with Computer Profile Setup (for installing a standard NT configuration throughout an organization), a 32-bit Uuencode/Uudecode application, a uni-to-multiprocessor kernel converter and a graphical TCP/IP configuration utility.

The resource kit is a powerful bag of tricks for NT system administrators. It's now possible, for instance, to set up a locked-closet server and control it from a remote system using a combination of NT's built-in Remote Access Service (RAS), the NT Server tools and the remote command-line utility. The kit significantly augments NT's command-line script files.

This edition also includes Internet services, such as World Wide Web (WWW), WAIS, gopher and ftp servers, a command-line utility to create new-user accounts, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) management tools, tools to compact and manage the "Jet" database used by the message database, a service application that allows any command-line program to be executed as a background NT "service" task, and a new screen saver that logs a user off after a period of inactivity.

Three of the four manuals in the kit have been updated since the previous version. The Resource Guide has updated information on NT setup, printing, configuration (registry) management, and migrating Windows, OS/2 and POSIX applications to NT. Windows NT Messages documents error and warning messages generated by NT and its subsystems. Optimizing Windows NT is the least changed, but it provides vital new information on NT 3.5 Performance Monitor objects, disk cache tuning and high-performance graphics programming, as well as documenting changes to the NT registry.

The new Windows NT Networking Guide contains information formerly found in various supplemental NT documents--with some additions. It covers NT 3.5's revised PPP-based RAS architecture, describes how to write and debug RAS scripts and how to write log-on scripts. It also has implementation details for NT's NetBios Frame (NBF) core network protocol and other supported protocols, including TCP/IP, Data Link Control (DLC), IPX/SPX, IBM SNA, and the net-library and DB-library protocols used by NT databases.

Support professionals will find the information on NT's NetLogon service and the chapter on NT's network browser invaluable.

But the real jewel is the 270-page discussion on NT's TCP/IP implementation. If you're attempting to implement an NT-based Internet server, this information is essential. It completely documents NT's TCP/IP implementation, how it relates to standard IP models, and how it's used with NBF and Internet-related services.

Although the four volumes have some weaknesses--like limited information on Internet security and third-party routers, poor e-mail coverage and limited troubleshooting information--they are still invaluable additions to any advanced NT user's library.

In my tests, I found the resource kit utilities to be extremely useful. While they're not always as well executed as conventional shrink-wrapped applications, the kit remains a bargain.

--Info File--

Windows NT Resource Kit, 2nd Edition

Price: $149.95

In Brief: This resource kit includes everything Microsoft left out of NT 3.5.

Disk Space: 10MB

RAM: 12MB (minimum)

Microsoft Press

800-MS-PRESS, 615-793-5090

Sub Spreads Its Wings

by: Jim Forbes

IBM's new ThinkPad 701 got its nickname Butterfly from its unique way of packing a full-size keyboard into an 8- by 10-inch subnotebook. The swing-out keyboard is the most interesting feature of this small machine with a large screen.

The ThinkPad 701 is available with either a 50MHz 486DX2 or a 75MHz 486DX4 processor and a color dual-scan passive-matrix (701CS) or active-matrix (701C) screen. It ships with either a 360MB or 540MB hard disk and 4 or 8MB of RAM. The standard configuration includes two Type II PCMCIA slots, local bus accelerated graphics, an internal 14.4Kbps modem, an infrared port, audio in and out, an external video port, a port replicator, an external 3.5-inch disk drive, and video and floppy disk drive cables. The ThinkPad 701 also comes standard with 8/16-bit business audio, an internal speaker and built-in microphone. PC-DOS 6.3, Windows 3.11 and software utilities are also included.

Both flavors of the 701 measure 2 by 11.5 (with the keyboard extended) by 5.7 inches and have travel weights of about 4.4 pounds including the AC power pack. Unlike other notebook makers, IBM does not include a carrying case in the basic configuration for either model. I tested a ThinkPad 701C with a 540MB hard disk, 8MB of system memory, a 10.4-inch active-matrix color screen and a 50MHz DX2 processor.

The two-piece keyboard makes the ThinkPad different from its competitors. As the case opens, the pieces travel first toward you, then expand and lock together into a full-sized 85-key keyboard. A TrackPoint pointing device sits in the middle of the keyboard.

Though the keyboard seems exceptional at first glance, its unusual design creates unwelcome tradeoffs. With the keyboard extended, the on/off switch is hidden from view and difficult to reach. There is too much more flex on the right (rear) side of the keyboard--particularly where the two pieces join together. I also found the keyboard uncomfortable to use for long periods.

However, the 10.4-inch active-matrix screen on the 701C is an absolute joy to view. It is bright enough to use on airplanes, and images and text are always clear. The video controller should be fast enough for most mainstream personal productivity applications. The TrackPoint III is comfortable to use and IBM ships replacement tips with every system. The on-board sound system should meet most basic requirements, but for presentations you'll want to use the external speaker jack.

The 701 uses a nickel cadmium power pack with a rating of 1.5 amp hours. Using applications such as Word and Excel with the automatic save feature set to 10 minutes, I could get about 1.2 hours' usage on its battery pack. Using extreme power conservation methods, I ran the machine for slightly less than two hours. The system charged fully in about 2.5 hours with a fresh battery and the case open. The battery charger supplied by IBM attaches directly to an AC outlet and comes with a 10-foot cord.

IBM includes a variety of diagnostic utilities that let you test your system's memory, motherboard, peripheral connections and other components. The virus and power-saving software that came loaded by default caused the Wintune performance scores to drop considerably, so you might want to disable them when you'd prefer speed over battery life.

Using Wintune, the ThinkPad's 50MHz DX2 processor cranked out a typical 26 MIPS and 5.5 MFLOPS. The video scored 2.5 million pixels per second and the hard disk scored 1.2MB per second.

Although IBM's ThinkPad 701 is a triumph of engineering, you might want to wait until the DX4 version becomes available or this one drops in price. The ThinkPad has plenty of features, but at more than five grand, it's just too expensive in its present form.

--Info File--

IBM ThinkPad 701C

Price: $5,440 as reviewed

In Brief: The ThinkPad 701CS has a 10.4-inch active-matrix screen and a keyboard that expands to 11.5 inches when the case is opened. It is available with a 540MB hard disk.

IBM Corp.

800-772-2227, 914-765-1900

Mini-Suite Maximizes Features

by: James E. Powell

WordPerfect Works has a new name: PerfectWorks 2.1. The changes go deeper than the name. The modules more closely resemble their full-featured counterparts in WordPerfect's PerfectOffice suite, and the program is more task oriented and document-centric than before. You could almost call it PerfectOffice Light.

I tested a beta version of PerfectWorks. Its word processor has borrowed productivity features from its big brother, WordPerfect. This module accounts for most of this version's improvements. A pared-down version of WordPerfect's QuickCorrect corrects misspellings as you type. Grammatik, a grammar and style checker, uses PerfectSense technology to replace words, phrases and sentences. If you replace "buy" with "purchase," the program will replace "bought" with "purchased." PerfectWorks now includes time backups to save your documents while you work.

As in PerfectOffice, you can now drag and drop information between modules and you can insert multiple files into a single document. A simple menu option also lets you insert the type of document you want without using drag-and-drop. For example, if you choose the Insert/Spreadsheet, PerfectWorks opens a frame, changes the menu, and is ready for your input. It's similar to in-place editing offered by OLE 2.0.

You can save a word processing document as a template, include long document descriptions and arrange templates in categories. You can also undo and redo the last 10 keyboard or mouse actions, and a stripped-down version of WordPerfect's powerful envelope creator is in PerfectWorks now.

The changes to the spreadsheet module are relatively minor. There are various new cell borders and 82 different 2-D and 3-D chart types. Width and row heights are now adjustable and auto-sum is a new feature. The spreadsheet has 100 built-in functions.

The database remains easy to use. Databases can contain 255 fields per record and 32,000 records each. PerfectWorks makes merging data from your database into your word processor easier.

The paint module--already a strong feature--is marginally improved. You can add effects, including tint, contrast, noise, mosaic, drip, banding and gray scale.

PerfectWorks finally includes its own communications module based on the company's ExpressFax+ product. The module wasn't available in the beta I tested, but it should provide basic communication services.

In each module, the File/Open and Save dialog boxes let you assign long directory names. The program supports most popular formats, including WordPerfect 6.x, Word 6.0, Ami Pro, Quattro Pro, Excel 5.0 and several graphics formats. The company says the program is Windows 95-ready.

Tool tips, a status bar and better-organized menus are among the most noticeable new GUI features. Rulers in the modules let you position your work more precisely. There are floating tool palettes, a 110,000-word spelling checker and a 660,000-word Thesaurus. Other useful features include multi-level zoom, snap-to-grid, headers, footers, footnotes and mail links to Novell GroupWise or MAPI mail systems.

You can preview some changes to your work before accepting the results. PerfectWorks' tabbed dialog boxes keep all the available options from overwhelming you. You can have one of the modules start automatically or choose from a menu of different document types. I particularly like the ability to quickly tile documents from different modules.

A few of WordPerfect's best features are missing, such as word counting and "shrink to fit." Still, the modules offer sophisticated features, such as irregular text wraps around graphics, wrapping text in spreadsheet cells, watermarks, annotations and dozens of spreadsheet cell formats.

PerfectWorks is a powerful set of applications with relatively meager hard disk demands that make this little brother a good alternative to PerfectOffice.

-- Info File --

PerfectWorks 2.1

Price: $109, upgrade from

WordPerfect Works 2.0, $34.95

In Brief: Just about everything you need is here, including excellent integration between the modules. It's the perfect upgrade path to PerfectOffice.

WordPerfect, the Novell Applications Group

800-451-5151, 801-225-5000