Put Pen to Slate
by: Hailey Lynne McKeefry
We've come a long way from the hand-held slates of a century ago. The DrawingSlate II uses the dimensions of a traditional chalk slate (it weighs 1.5 pounds and measures 10.1 by 11.2 by .25 inches) to let you control and use any WinTAB-compliant programto create masterpieces without chalk, charcoal, oils or watercolors. When the pen is within half an inch of the tablet, it controls the cursor and will perform traditional mouse functions. CalComp also offers 4-and 16-button cursors.
CalComp has made a number of improvements over its original DrawingSlate. The resolution has been bumped up to 2,540 lines per inch. Other nice additions include a plastic overlay that simulates the texture of paper and a pen holder that attaches to your workspace.
The software included with the DrawingSlate II adds considerable utility. It let me set the minimum and maximum pressure needed to activate the pressure pen tip, and I could rotate the drawing area between portrait and landscape mode. The software is intuitive and simple.
The active area of the tablet measures 6 by 9 inches. For those who want to create larger-than-life masterpieces, CalComp offers tablets with 12 by 12 inches and 12 by 18 inches of active drawing area. While I wouldn't suggest that this is the replacement for an everyday mouse, the price and ease of use make it a fine candidate if you want to turn your PC into an artist's easel.
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CalComp DrawingSlate II
Price: $280
CalComp
800-932-1212, 602-948-6540.
Presto Digitization
by: Tom Ponzo
Once upon a time, if you said your calculator talked to you, you might've ended up in a special place for overtaxed number crunchers. SmartSum is a chatty calculator that includes the ability to make sound among its many talents.
Click in a few numbers and SmartSum will exercise its electronic lungs and read them back, even telling you what operation you're performing. But the program doesn't stop at sound. Its multipaned screens are also a feast for the eyes.
SmartSum's main screen is for basic calculator functions. A smaller screen at the bottom displays 10 memory slots. Click on one of these memory buttons to quickly retrieve its contents.
SmartSum's electronic paper tape occupies another part of the screen. As you make entries, they're "printed" on the tape. Double-click on the entry and a window pops up that lets you amend entries. You can change the number or percentage, or make the number negative. Or change the math function, switching from addition to subtraction, for example.
Give your number crunching a name by typing a title above the adding machine screen. You can annotate the paper tape next to the numbers you entered. It's incredibly simple, and when you click on the print button, you won't end up with paper curling around your ankles.
SmartSum has four buttons to adjust the number of decimal places to work with fractions as small as one-millionth. There are also macros for frequently used calculations. Create your own or use SmartSum's to do things like convert gallons to liters or Fahrenheit to Celsius. Create your own tax calculations or use those supplied with the program.
You can inject your calculations into another application, save and reload calculations to reuse them, and change the color of the screens as well as the adding machine's fonts.
To sum it all up, SmartSum is a versatile calculator that's easy to use. With its all-business vocabulary, it may not rate as a world-class conversationalist, but its back talk makes it good company.
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SmartSum
Price: $29
Disk Space: 489KB
System Resources: 10%
RAM: 317KB
Insight Software Solutions
801-295-1890, fax 801-299-1781
A New Millennium
by: David Gabel
The Matrox MGA Millennium graphics adapter offers performance and features that are hard to beat--especially at the price. I tested a preproduction version, equipped with 4MB of video memory.
Millennium offers 3-D acceleration in hardware, and Windows graphics acceleration at resolutions and color depths as high as 1600x1200 at true color.
The Millennium uses a new kind of dual-ported video RAM, called Window RAM, or WRAM, which Matrox claims will deliver better performance than the older, also dual-ported VRAM at a lower cost. The card lived up to its claim, registering scores roughly 26 percent better in the Wintune video test than the Matrox MGA Impression Plus that we reviewed in our July issue--and that card won our WINDOWS Magazine Recommended seal. Millennium scored about 12 percent faster in the Excel test and 6.7 percent faster in the Painter test. Surprisingly, in our PowerPoint test--which emphasizes color fills--Millennium came in 30 percent slower than Impression Plus.
Installing the Millennium is simple. Put the card into an open slot and connect the monitor to the card. Start Windows in standard VGA mode, insert the driver disk into your floppy disk drive and run Setup. You control the Millennium with Matrox's excellent MGA PowerDesk utility, which features on-the-fly mode switching among four modes that you can predefine.
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Matrox MGA Millennium
Price: $379
Matrox Graphics
800-361-1408, fax 514-969-6363
IBM Eyes the I-net
by: James E. Powell
The information highway can be a bumpy ride for new drivers. But if you're a veteran of the Internet and you're used to wheeling your way around cybercity, IBM's Internet Connection is a full suite of Internet navigation tools that should interest you.
Beginners, however, may find it hard to get into gear with Internet Connection. Its help file is sufficient if you know where you're going, but the information is likely to seem scanty otherwise. There's little help related to signing up with a service provider, for example, and you aren't told that you need to ask for a SLIP account (not a PPP) to get started. If you opt to use IBM's own Internet access service, however, a single button click and a credit card will provide a smoother ride.
Performance was acceptable with the program's Web browser, called WebExplorer Mosaic. You can quickly add your current site to its hotlist by clicking on the Add button.
The NewsReader worked without a hitch. It displays a list of sites available for subscription or lets you enter a site name. The reader has three windows. One lists the newsgroups you subscribe to, another shows the selected newsgroup's articles and the final one presents the text of the article you click on.
You can send e-mail messages to individuals or groups. Messages can be stored in folders, and you can send files, too. The documentation doesn't describe what kind of configuration your recipients must have to view files, a serious omission as Internet mail handlers accommodate files in different ways.
The ftp module provides file transfer between your system and the host, but I couldn't get it to work with the hosts I tried. Gopher and telnet options are also provided, as well as a connection tester, a keyboard remapper, and a viewer for .GIF, JPEG and .BMP files.
Internet Connection is solid, with well-organized and well-designed features. But with so many novices just getting revved up on the Internet, it needs a better help file and improved documentation if IBM hopes to guide those newcomers along the information highway.
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Internet Connection 3.0
Price: $85 (street)
Disk Space: 11MB
System Resources: 18%
RAM: 4MB
IBM Corp.
800-342-6672, Canada 800-426-2255
Power to the Enterprise
by: Jeffrey Sloman
The HP PowerWise 1000VA UPS offers the confidence of Hewlett-Packard enterprise power protection at a modest price. Weighing in at 48 pounds, the unit has bar graphs on the front panel indicating battery state as a percentage of total charge and load as a percentage of maximum. It also includes status LED indicators and warning lights.
As you might guess from its name, the unit offers a rated 1000VA of standby power out of the box. The HP PowerWise 1000VA UPS is powered by an internal 48V sealed, lead acid battery, but you can add up to five external battery units to increase runtime. If more than one battery unit is connected, the cables are daisy chained. You can stack the batteries underneath the main unit. A rack mounting kit is available from HP.
The unit includes software to monitor and control the UPS status. I tested the NT software. Frequently updated graphical displays of line voltage, load and battery condition mirror the information provided by the UPS front panel. You can also monitor power quality. The unit seems to be a solid, no-nonsense product typical of HP. Its simple installation and operation inspire confidence in a product that protects your entire enterprise's data.
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HP PowerWise 1000VA UPS
Price: $1,099
Hewlett-Packard Co.
800-533-1333
Scan Cards to Deal Data to PIMs
by: James E. Powell
CardScan can shuffle a stack of business cards right into your PIM. CardScan now includes a parallel-port scanner, replacing one that required an interface card. Installation is quick and using CardScan is easy. When you place a card in the scanner, it starts the scan process, rotates the image if necessary and performs OCR to convert the image to text.
OCR is fast and extremely accurate. It recognizes and parses names, company names, telephone numbers, cities, states and zip codes. Miscellaneous text goes into a Notes field. It was remarkably accurate with phone numbers, resulting in only one error among the 40 cards I scanned.
After the OCR step, you can edit the results or enter other information. You can mark the cards that you have already checked and corrected.
The card data can be exported easily. I sent comma-delimited data to Sidekick with no problems. CardScan includes export definitions for most major PIMs. The program's own limited PIM features are adequate for simple address and phone number lookups.
Over a dozen page layouts for paper-based PIMs have been added.You can also use other scanners now, such as card readers from UMAX, Mitsumi, Microtek and Pacific Crest.
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CardScan 2.0
Price: $299 (with scanner)
Corex Technologies
800-94COREX, 617-277-5344
Three Printer Ports--No Waiting
by: Rich Santalesa
Hewlett-Packard's $529, three-port JetDirect EX Plus3 print server is the affirmative answer to the question: Can't network printer installation, configuration and queue management be made easier?
In fact, I had the JetDirect EX installed on a Novell network and configured for use in 10 minutes. After an additional 15 minutes, three workstations and a Mac were ready to print. The EX Plus3's three ports are Bi-Tronics parallel ports.
To say that HP gave serious thought to network printing needs in the JetDirect EX is an understatement. The intuitive network administrator tools incorporated in the JetDirect's JetAdmin software makes PCONSOLE resemble software from the Sputnik era. What's more, the JetDirect EX Plus3 covers all the printer bases, with Macintosh support, drag-and-drop print ability and compatibility with Windows for Workgroups, Windows NT, NetWare, Apple EtherTalk and OS/2 LAN Server, among others.
Not only does HP's JetDirect EX make life easier for network supervisors, it also supplies an extremely robust end-user printing tool in its JetPrint software. This software can easily be tailored to provide users with access to as much, or as little, printer and queue capability as desired.
For instance, using JetAdmin, a supervisor can preinstall the correct Windows printer drivers to be used by EX Plus3-connected printers. Then, driver installation throughout a corporation or department is simply a matter of users firing up the JetPrint software at the workstation, selecting the printer desired and sitting back as the drivers copy to their local Windows system directory. JetPrint also provides detailed feedback on job status and printer problems.
If there are any minor flies in the EX ointment, it's the fact that DLC/LCC is only supported by the first of the three parallel ports. DLC/LCC enables IBM and Microsoft LAN Server and Manager, WFWG 3.1x and NT systems to directly use the EX Plus3 without the presence of a NetWare server. This aside, the JetDirect EX Plus3 defines the current state of the art in network printing support.
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HP JetDirect EX Plus3
Price: $529; Token Ring model, $729
Hewlett-Packard Co.
800-752-0900, 408-246-4300
BIG Backups on Your Parallel Port
by: David Gabel
With hard disks getting larger and larger, you need a very high-capacity drive to back up all that information. Not to worry. Drive manufacturers are increasing their products' capacities all the time. Take Iomega's new Ditto 1700 drive, for instance. It will cram 1.7GB of (compressed) data onto a cartridge. It uses standard QIC-3020 cartridges and can use others in a pinch.
The Ditto 1700 connects to the parallel port, so hooking it up is a breeze. It comes with a parallel cable and a cartridge in the box, along with the transformer power supply. Running the drive is simple. First you turn it on and install the software. Then put a tape in the drive, push buttons in the easy-to-use interface and you're backing up data in a trice.
The drive runs slowly over the parallel port. The software estimated 21 minutes for a backup of 200MB. In actuality, it took almost 30 minutes.
This drive is a snap to use, though, and a good solution for backing up today's monster hard disks. By the time you read this, the 1700 will have become a Travan drive that will store either 3.2GB or 1.7GB, according to Iomega.
Iomega Ditto 1800
Price: Internal, $299, external $399 (street)
Iomega Corp.
800-MY-STUFF, 801-778-1000
Work from Takeoff to Touchdown
by: James E. Powell
With the AST Ascentia 910N, you can fly coast to coast without changing your laptop's batteries. This performance is due to the Ascentia 910N's lithium ion battery and its aggressive power management features. I got six hours of battery life, on average, rather than the 10 hours that AST projects. Even so, repowering proved extremely efficient. The battery can recharge in about 2.5 hours, or you can hot swap with a new battery.
The 910N uses an Intel DX4/75 chip and sports a beautiful, 10.4-inch active-matrix (TFT) color screen. The 32-bit local-bus accelerated graphics provides excellent video response. Contrast and brightness are handled with keyboard combinations, not dials.
The 910N comes with a minimum of 8MB of memory (expandable to 32MB). There are five I/O ports (serial, parallel, video, mouse and port replicator), a 3.5-inch high-density floppy disk drive, a removable 510MB IDE hard disk (a 700MB disk is optional) and a PCMCIA slot for one Type III or two Type II cards.
The total weight, including battery, is 6.3 pounds. The unit can use AST's PowerStation III docking station and comes with useful software such as Lotus Organizer.
The keyboard has a good feel to it, and the SmartPoint track stick was easy to get used to. The 910N has a three-year warranty.
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AST Ascentia 910N
Price: $3,899 (street)
AST Research
800-876-4278, 714-727-4141
Laser Turns Itself On
by: Michelle Tyrrell
Precious few things in life truly qualify as "foolproof," and rarely do they involve hardware or software. But the Canon LBP 430W Laser Printer might just fall into that realm. With its simplified design (there's not even an on/off switch, since it turns itself on or off automatically), Microsoft At Work printing software that can talk you through the printing process, excellent documentation and ridiculously easy setup process, you really can't go wrong with this printer.
The features on this 300dpi, 4ppm printer make it worth the $549 price tag. You can print documents in collated form, and the dialog box features two-sided printing, along with long-edge and short-edge printing for bound documents. The print quality, density and gray-scale halftoning are adjustable, too. Plus, the unit is pleasantly small at just 14 inches by 14 inches by 5.5 inches.
The Microsoft At Work Display Box can be extremely helpful for the printing-impaired. You can view a progress bar, which estimates how much printing time is left and when the job will be complete. Or check out the printer animation, where a see-through animated printer shows you the exact location of the paper in the printing path at all times. Topping it off is the voice that alerts you when printing starts and ends, or when there's a paper jam.
The printer uses PCL 4 emulation and comes with 512KB memory, upgradable to 4.5MB. The paper cassette holds 100 sheets of plain paper, fewer than many comparably priced printers, and is equipped with a sliding paper-size guide that adjusts for letter, legal, executive, B5 and A4-size paper. The plastic size guide, while fairly easy to use, is a tad flimsy and requires careful adjustment. But the manual-feed feature works like a charm, handling stationery, envelopes and transparencies with aplomb.
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Canon LBP 430W Laser Printer
Price: $549
Canon Computer Systems
800-848-4123
Satisfy Your Need for Speed
by: Philip Albinus
Even if you have a Pentium PC loaded with more memory than a jealous spouse, you might still hunger for more speed. I used a Dell 90MHz Pentium with 16MB of RAM to test a pair of impressive Hercules video accelerator cards that just might satisfy your appetite.
The Graphite Terminator Professional is a PCI-bus video card that offers quick video and GUI acceleration performance. The card takes full advantage of its 4MB VRAM configuration--it clocked 11.572 million pixels per second on our Wintune video benchmark and scored impressive numbers in our PowerPoint and Painter tests. But the Professional really shone on the AutoCAD test, redrawing and rendering a complex image in just 24.35 seconds.
The Graphite Terminator 64/DRAM is a 2MB PCI card that also offers good performance. It scored 9.576 million pixels per second on the Wintune benchmark and had a strong showing in the Painter, PowerPoint and AutoCAD tests as well. If you do extensive CAD or graphic design work, however, you'd be better off with the Terminator Professional.
If the cards share an Achilles' heel, it's the DOS installation for the video drivers. Both cards also require that you exit and restart Windows every time you change resolution or color depths.
If you overlook the software and concentrate on the hardware, neither of these cards will disappoint you.
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Hercules Graphite Terminator Professional and Graphite Terminator 64/DRAM
Price: Professional, 4MB VRAM, $559; 2MB VRAM, $389; 64/DRAM, $259
Hercules Computer Technology
800-532-0600, 510-623-6030