Dec 95 First Impressions

by: James E. Powell

I love my job. It lets me regularly try out the latest and greatest hardware and software on the market. My last test drive was the ALR Optima 5133 Pentium system. Take my word for it: This system should be at the top of your buying list if you're looking for a desktop system with excellent performance and a long warranty.

The base configuration of the $3,099 Optima 5133 model 1600CD-16 includes 16MB of RAM (expandable to 128MB), a Sanyo quad-speed CD-ROM drive, 256KB of standard level 2 cache (upgradable to 512KB), a 3.5-inch floppy drive, an ALR two-button mouse, a 101-key keyboard, a speedy 1.6GB Western Digital Caviar hard drive supporting the EIDE PIO (programmed input/output) mode 4 protocol, a 200-watt power supply and Windows 95 preinstalled.

My test unit had 2MB of graphics memory, a Creative Labs VIBRA 16 audio card and a pair of average-sounding Labtec CS-600 speakers with AC adapter, adding $147 to the base price. I also used a 15-inch, noninterlaced ALR ClearVIEW monitor manufactured by MAG InnoVision, which added $450, for a total system price of $3,696.

The prices I've mentioned are what you'll pay if you order directly from ALR--but almost nobody does that. The company sells about half its systems through value-added resellers (translation: consultants and other third parties that offer customized configurations) at prices that are likely to be lower than those quoted here. Customization is the reason the Optima doesn't come preloaded with tons of software--just Windows 95 or Windows for Workgroups--or perhaps a fax modem.

The Optima supports Windows 95 Plug-and-Play devices with its five slots: two ISA, two PCI and one combination ISA/PCI. This slimline desktop machine measures 4.3 by 17.2 by 16.2 inches. Inside it's truly compact. Add-in cards are mounted horizontally on a riser card, so this is not the machine to buy if you update cards frequently. On one side there's a set of three slots, so you have to remove two cards to get to the one at the bottom.

Graphic support is on the motherboard, using the S3 Trio32 chip. It supports DPMS (energy-efficient) monitors, with a maximum resolution of 1280x1024 at 256 colors or 1024x768 with 64,000 colors. The motherboard also provides two 16550-compatible nine-pin serial ports, a PS/2-sized keyboard port,

a PS/2-sized mouse jack and one multimode, bidirectional parallel port.

The system also supports two high-performance PCI/IDE interfaces for use with up to four IDE devices, including devices that support PIO modes 3 and 4. There are two 3.5-inch drive bays (one occupied by the hard disk drive and one by the floppy disk drive) and two 5.25-inch half-height bays (one is occupied by the CD-ROM drive). It's not hard to add a fourth peripheral, such as a tape backup unit, since the vacant 5.25-inch bay is easily accessible at the system's top.

The Optima doesn't have all the latest technology: It uses standard, not EDO (extended data out), RAM and regular write-back cache instead of the more advanced pipeline-burst cache. Even so, the results of our Wintune 95 benchmarks were impressive. The Optima flew at 241MIPS and 74MFLOPS. Video speed was a respectable 7.4Mpixels per second, though it felt much faster. The hard disk was fast at loading applications, providing 15.1MB per second performance. Our WINDOWS Magazine Word 7.0 macro took 35 seconds to complete; the Excel 7.0 macro averaged 17.33 seconds to execute.

The Optima is available in other configurations, such as model 5120 with a Pentium 120 chip. The unit is so new that the user guide talks about Pentium 100 as the most powerful model and misstates the number of available slots, but all the other information remains the same. Both Pentium 120 and 133 models include a 5-year warranty on system components (chassis, keyboard, CPU, motherboard and power supply) and a 36-month warranty on installed peripherals, such as the hard drive, excluding monitors. The first year of service is on-site, with a standard response of two business days. The company also offers toll-free technical support, as well as optional 24-hour tech support.

If you're looking for a desktop model that speeds through Windows 95 tasks, the ALR Optima is a great choice. I love my job.

--Info File--
ALR Optima 5133
Price: $3,099
In Brief: This is a top-performing, economical and compact system with an excellent warranty.
Advanced Logic Research
800-444-4ALR, 714-581-6770

by: Joel T. Patz

When you set out to reengineer your business, the last thing you want to do is consume a lot of time and money trying to figure out how to save those very things. Even with well-defined objectives, you could spend days developing Total Quality Management (TQM) flowcharts or organizing details for ISO 9000 certification. Or you could try FlowModel 2.0 for Windows 95, a graphics program that efficiently organizes and presents diagrammatic content.

I tested a late beta version of FlowModel. When you choose one of FlowModel's nine templates, including Org Chart, Pert Chart, Network or Dataflow, a symbol palette appears on the diagram window's grid. Two clicks--on a symbol and in the design window--start your diagram. As you place the shapes, you can establish the relationships between them using the palette's connectors. You don't have to worry about getting everything just right; your job is to get the information on the board.

Once the preliminary symbols and relationships are laid out, another click directs FlowModel to rearrange your information for the best presentation of the diagram's content. Symbols are aligned, and flows between them are routed for clarity. Diagram orientation is up to you: Your chart can run top to bottom, left to right or in a radial configuration.

Add text anywhere on the diagram--attached to a shape or as free-floating notes. You can drag and drop text, and adjust fonts and color to add emphasis. Spreadsheet data or an executable file can be included on the diagram, as can field data associated with a symbol. Adding graphics requires only a few more mouse clicks.

You can also adjust other formatting details of your diagram. FlowModel lets you select straight-line, right-angle or network style line routing and text justification, and you can customize the color, pattern and outline characteristics of the shapes. Right-click on an individual shape to distinguish its detail from similar shapes. Customize other elements--such as line color, style and ornamentation, and the symbols at the ends of lines, like arrowheads and boxes. Text can be placed in front of or behind an associated shape or line. The built-in spell checker can be programmed to pick out words in uppercase and those containing numbers.

FlowModel lets you adjust the horizontal and vertical sizes of shapes in every palette, but you can rotate only the triangle, diamond, pentagon, hexagon and octagon shapes. A dialog box makes it easy to assign a new or different meaning to a symbol, or to include an imported image in the shape list.

The toolbars are movable and the palettes can be resized to accommodate the working surface. You can easily adjust the color of the grid lines, as well as the block sizes and the spaces between them.

As you work on a diagram, view it at different magnifications, and print diagrams at scales ranging from 10 to 400 percent of actual size. If you want your diagram to fit on a single page, FlowModel makes the necessary reduction. For oversized diagrams requiring multiple pages, you can include registration marks and page numbers to facilitate their reconstruction.

FlowChart 2.0 allows you to export and import data to and from spreadsheets and other analytical tools. Updated analytical information assures that your diagram is always current.

The program comes on a single set of disks that will run under Windows 95, Windows NT and Windows 3.1.

FlowModel doesn't accommodate any mathematical options as some of its competition does, nor does it support rotated text or let you decide the connecting points of flow lines. Its extensive array of formatting and customizing options, however, combined with the capability of redrawing relationships in a logical and expository manner, makes FlowModel 2.0 a real productivity booster.

--Info File--
FlowModel 2.0 for Windows 95
Price: $195
Win 95 Software In Brief: FlowModel is an upper-level diagramming program that uses "intelligent" layout and routing technology.
Arcland
800-276-9993, 610-993-9904

by: Hailey Lynne McKeefry

Suddenly, I feel like the Pied Piper of Hamlin. People I haven't seen in weeks or months are stopping by my office or chasing me down the hall. My magic flute is the Xerox XPrint 4920 color laser printer sitting on my desk. I've discovered that business users follow its colorful output very much like those rats followed a catchy tune.

Fortunately, the XPrint 4920 is designed to be shared. Centronics Parallel, LocalTalk and RS-232C serial interfaces are standard. Optional interfaces include Ethernet (for Net-

Ware, EtherTalk, TCP/IP, DLC/LLC and SNMP protocols), Token Ring (for NetWare, TokenTalk, TCP/IP, DLC/LLC and SNMP protocols) and Auto-Protocol Sensing (for IPX, EtherTalk and TCP/IP). The printer software provides simple access to and control of network functionality, including server setup, maintenance details and port setup. Even if you wanted to keep this printer to yourself, the unit--which measures 15 by 21 by 24 inches--weighs in at 108 pounds, making it more appropriate for some centralized location than one person's desktop.

The XPrint provides the variety of paper-handling options that you would expect from a workgroup workhorse. You can use paper weights from 16 to 43 pounds and can print on letter-, legal-, A4- and executive-size sheets. The only stricture is a limit of 11.7 inches of color printing on legal paper. One downside: The universal paper tray only handles up to 250 sheets of paper or 75 transparencies, and the fast and furious printing of a workgroup in full swing would tap out this tray far too quickly. Xerox offers a high-capacity, 1,500-page sheet feed and plans to offer a 1,000-sheet output stacker to bring the unit's paper-handling capacity up to speed for multiple users.

This printer can easily be used for both color and black-and-white printing. Color jobs print at a rate of 3 pages per minute, while duotone documents appear at about twice that speed. For black-and-white printing, the XPrint zips along at 12ppm, making it competitive with the fastest monochrome laser printers on the market.

No matter what you are printing, the unit provides clear and crisp 600 dot-per-inch output. I found that the color was fine for what I needed to do. However, choosing Options under the Print command brings you into a six-tab dialog box that allows you to control every minute detail of your print job, including color matching, watermarks, paper orientation, resolution, color mode, media type and fonts. The unit comes preloaded with four toner/

developer cartridges (cyan, magenta, yellow and black), making setup incredibly simple.

One clear advantage of color laser over ink jet is that there's none of the waxy ink-on-paper feel you get with many ink jet printers. The color doesn't scratch or flake off the page, and it has the look and feel that's so familiar to monochrome-laser users. Price-per-page for color can be daunting, but the XPrint provides an affordable alternative once you get past the printer's high price tag. Black-and-white pages cost about 2.9 cents each to print, while color pages cost 20 cents.

The 4920 model that I looked at was the mid-range option in a family that also includes the XPrint 4915 and 4925 color laser printers. The XPrint 4920 comes standard with 16MB of RAM (upgradable to 48MB) and 35 Adobe Type 1 fonts. Adobe PostScript Level 2 and PCL 5E Emulation, as well as 35 Intellifonts and 10 TrueType fonts, are optional.

The XPrint 4920, which combines the best of networked black-and-white laser printing (including speed and affordability) and color laser printing (clear color and ease of use), will have coworkers lining up for print time. Powerful but easy-to-use networking utilities make the printer simple to control and maintain on a network. Although its steep price tag makes the 4920 something more than an impulse purchase, this printer can be a good addition to any workgroup that wants to add color but still keep the option of printing black-and-white jobs.

--Info File--
Xerox XPrint 4920
Price: $7,995
In Brief: Stunning color at an economical per-page price.
Xerox Corp.
800-34-XEROX, 716-423-5230

by: Rich Castagna

Let's turn back the clock and travel through the annals of personal computing for a moment or two. Think about the first time you got your old 8086 to hook up to a BBS or to swap files with a friend's PC. There's a good chance you used Qmodem for your first cybersteps. Qmodem has kept pace with the progress of PCs and it is once again--nearly a decade later--among the early offerings for Windows 95 communications.

Shipped at the launch of Windows 95, QmodemPro is a full-featured communication program that rivals other popular comm choices such as Procomm Plus and Crosstalk. Like those two programs, Qmodem offers something for everyone. It provides easy, point-and-click session launching for those who don't give a baud about how they get connected as long as they can hook up and sign on. Yet cybernauts who take pleasure in protocols will enjoy Qmodem's more sophisticated features, such as its scripting.

Most of this version's enhancements are related to Windows 95. Befitting its new environment, Qmodem is a 32-bit app, with support for multitasking and multithreading. Its multithreaded protocols make it possible for a comm session to continue--uploading or downloading files, for instance--while other Windows 95 applications are hard at work.

New, too, are MAPI links that work with your e-mail system to let you send messages directly from one of two other programs that come with Qmodem--the Editor and the Viewer. By themselves, these two apps are handy for writing scripts or text messages, and for peeking inside picture files. The Viewer can display .GIF, .BMP and JPEG files.

Also new and notable is Qmodem's File List Clipboard. This feature, a variation on Windows' Clipboard, makes it easier to download files. As you pore through a BBS or online service, you won't have to keep track of filenames jotted on scraps of paper, and you're less likely to bungle a download because you mistyped the name. With the File List Clipboard, you can simply highlight the filenames on your terminal screen while you're online and drag them to the list. When you're ready to download, a click on Send places the correct filenames on your session screen.

One area that has been left virtually intact from the previous version is Qmodem's excellent dialing directory. When you click on the Phone icon button, a window opens with each phonebook dialing entry shown as an icon. Double-click on one of the icons and the dialing begins. To add an entry, select Edit/New from the phonebook's menu and fill in the connection information on the tabbed dialogs that follow. You can choose an icon to represent the new entry from Qmodem's selection or one of your own.

Qmodem will also import dialing directories from other comm programs, including Crosstalk and Procomm, or from a straight ASCII list. I popped a Procomm directory into Qmodem with little more effort than pointing to it and saying, "Do it." Any phonebook entry can be configured for a voice call rather than a data line link. When you use the icon to make a call, a new status box appears that shows the call's duration, gives you the option of hanging up, and logs the time and length of the call.

You can take advantage of Qmodem's convenient dialing directory and its OLE 2.0 support to create shortcuts for specific connection setups. Just drag a phonebook entry's icon onto the Windows 95 desktop. When you want to connect to that service, you can just double-click on the shortcut. This way, you can easily initiate and complete the connection without having to worry about any session settings--or even passwords if you include them in the setup.

Qmodem has added TAPI support and can encrypt passwords using the MD5 algorithm (Message Digest Algorithm) if the host also supports that encryption scheme.

Given its history and the current state of its art, you get the feeling that Qmodem will be around for a while. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it turned up as the first comm program for Windows 2001.

--Info File--
QmodemPro 2.0 for Windows 95
Price: $129; upgrade, $69
Win 95 Software In Brief: QmodemPro is asolid Windows 95 communications package that's appropriate for both novice and veteran communicators.
Disk Space: 7MBSystem
Resources: NARAM: 4MB (8MB recommended)
Mustang Software
800-999-9619, 805-873-2500

by: Jim Forbes

Every now and then a notebook computer manufacturer decides to take a risk on a non-Intel, although Intel-compatible, processor. In today's Windows market, that means one of two chips, Advanced Micro Devices' AM486 family or Cyrix's 5x86.

AMD's chip has been around for some time. In fact, I've tested a couple of desktop computers that used the 100MHz version and found its performance impressive. A 120MHz version is also available. Cyrix bills its new processor as a "586-compatible" chip, implying that it should offer Pentium-level performance. Read on.

CTX has two notebooks that use the Cyrix 5x86 chip, the CTX 500T (which uses a 100MHz processor) and the CTX 520T (which uses a 120MHz processor). Both machines share common configurations: an 810MB hard disk, 1MB of video memory, 8MB of RAM (the 500T and 520T each support EDO RAM), VESA local-bus accelerated graphics and a 10.4-inch color active-matrix screen. They also provide 16-bit Sound Blaster-compatible audio with built-in sound, an internal 3.5-inch drive, one serial and one parallel port, an external Super VGA connector and a trackpad pointing device. Both units conform to what has become a standard notebook form factor of about 2 by 12 by 9 inches, and have travel weights, including chargers, of slightly more than 7 pounds.

I had a chance to examine an engineering sample of the CTX EzBook 500T. The unit I tested differed from production versions in that it did not have an IDE 810MB hard disk. The CTX EzBook 500T comes with Windows 95 preinstalled on its hard disk. While I did not have a chance to perform a run-down test on this prototype, the size of the nickel metal hydride batteries should provide most users with two hours or so of battery power.

I have more to say about the Cyrix processor used in this machine than I do about the CTX 500T. At $2,700 this notebook offers a lot of features, including a proven high-capacity Seagate hard disk drive that I like. And unless you're going to run a lot of applications that require considerable floating-point support (such as presentation and other graphics programs), this machine is well worth your consideration.

My problem with this computer is Cyrix's 5x86 processor. According to our Wintune 95 benchmarks, its performance more closely mimes the 486 than the Pentium's (which Intel's competitors call a "586"). And despite the clock speed printed on the outside of this chip, I was not able to get it to run at 100MHz in any of the several benchmark tests we performed. The raw benchmark numbers for Cyrix's 100MHz 5x86 were 111MIPS and 3MFLOPS. Such results more closely resemble those from notebooks equipped with Intel 75MHz 486DX4 processors than those from 100MHz Pentium notebooks. In fact, even a 60MHz Pentium outperforms this chip in processor and floating-point performance.

The other two results of our Wintune benchmarks were a video score of 2.87Mpixels per second and a disk throughput rating of 3.45MB per second. This machine's production versions will use a Seagate 810MB hard disk drive, which in previous First Impressions has attained scores on Pentium-based notebooks as high as 9MBps.

While this machine will probably suit many people's needs, the Cyrix processor's performance is well below that of an Intel Pentium at equivalent clock speeds. So take a look, but keep your eyes open.

--Info File--
CTX EzBook 500T
Price: $2,695
In Brief: The CTX EzBook 500T uses a 100MHz Cyrix 5x86 processor and ships with a high capacity hard disk and Windows 95. It performs more like a high-speed 486 machine than a Pentium-based machine.
CTX International
800-888-9052, 909-595-6146

by: Michelle Tyrrell

Ah! A color scanner. After you have all the other components in place for your home office or small business, shopping for a color scanner can take on many of the elements of the search for the Holy Grail. You know a scanner would make your work so much better, so much easier--there would be no more running down to Kinko's late at night for those scans that add such pizzazz to your documents. But, of course, you also know that color scanners are big, expensive, difficult to install and probably hard to use.

Not necessarily. Tamarack's impressive Z1-600 flatbed color scanner features an 8.5-by-11-inch scanning bed and produces wonderful 30-bit color at a resolution of 300x600 dots per inch (with a maximum interpolated resolution of 2400x2400dpi). The included software makes it easy to learn and simple to use--and what would have been cost-prohibitive only a short time ago is now quite affordable. The whole package costs less than $700, a better price than that of many comparable models.

Setup was fairly easy: Unpack the unit, remove the carriage-retaining screw, connect the SCSI cable, plug in the SCSI adapter (an ISA card) and install the software. The only problem I encountered was the fact that my PC didn't immediately recognize the scanner. Since the expansion card had no jumpers or switches and the documentation said the PC driver would automatically locate and assign a valid I/O address, I was at a loss. But a quick call to Tamarack's technical support line provided me with a valid address, and from then on it was smooth sailing.

The Z1-600 has a rated scanning speed of 35 seconds for a 300dpi, 30-bit color letter-size scan, and most of my tests scored 32 to 37 seconds. The unit also produced excellent 10-bit gray-scale and 1-bit black-and-white images; it distinguished more than 1 billion colors and 1,024 shades of gray. The Z1-600 delivered color and depth in both highlight and shadow areas for a picture-perfect scan with superb line tolerance and razor-sharp details.

The scanner can also give you a preview of the scanned image. A color preview takes about 17 seconds; the unit needs just 8 seconds for a black-and-white preview. From there, you can tweak the image using the unit's controls, which include adjustments for resolution, scaling, 200 levels of brightness and contrast, 256 levels of gamma correction and RGB selectable levels for gray-scale tweaking.

The TWAIN driver scans directly into any TWAIN-compatible application, including PageMaker and Photoshop. Other software drivers include those for OCR (optical character recognition) and image editing. The included Readiris OCR software worked well. Adobe Photoshop 3.0 LE also comes bundled with the Z1-600.

The scanner requires your system to have at least 4MB of RAM, according to its maker, but I was working with 12MB and could have used even more. Under Windows 3.11, the TWAIN drivers, along with the Photoshop and OCR software, took their toll on my system more than once, requiring me to reboot several times. Of course, I was able to work out those problems after some image adjustment, but some aspects of Photoshop were still unavailable to me because of my system's lack of RAM. And since a color scanner isn't worth much without image-editing software, a good amount of RAM on your desktop should be a priority.

The Z1-600 measures 4.8 by 13.1 by 18.5 inches and is available with an optional transparency adapter for transparencies, slides and negatives, plus an optional automatic document feeder.

A built-in SCSI port easily connects to both PC and Macintosh systems, and is ASPI-compliant for compatibility with most popular SCSI adapters.

While it can't crank out professionally produced images in bulk quantities, the Z1-600 seems like the perfect solution for small businesses that need a color scanner to process photos and images for, say, in-house publications. It is also suitable for home-office users yearning for fast, efficient, low-cost color scanning with superior quality. Maybe your prayers have been answered after all

.--Info File--
Tamarack Z1-600
Price: $649
In Brief: This 30-bit color flatbed scanner provides high-quality scanning at an affordable price.
Tamarack Technologies
800-598-3918, 714-744-3979

by: James Bell

It might take a leap of faith to believe that your PC could put paper out to pasture. But when it comes to sharing files with other PC users, Adobe Acrobat software makes paper seem passe`.

I tested a beta of Acrobat Pro 2.1, which adds more platform support, more convenient operation and new plug-in options for linking Acrobat documents with multimedia files and Internet Web sites.

Acrobat lets you create application and platform-independent electronic documents. You print documents from any application to a special Acrobat print driver, which builds a Portable Document Format (.PDF) file that maintains formatting, fonts and graphics. The .PDF files can be viewed or printed by others with Acrobat Reader, a free utility.

Acrobat Pro 2.1 includes the Reader utility and the more sophisticated Acrobat Exchange. Exchange provides viewing and printing options, but also lets you set bookmarks, annotate Acrobat pages with pop-up notes and modify .PDF documents. You can reorder, rotate and crop pages; combine .PDF files; set access restrictions; control on-screen text flow; and define links between individual pages, multiple .PDF files or external applications. Like Reader, Exchange is an OLE 2.0 server.

From most applications, to create a .PDF file you use Acrobat PDF Writer driver. For better results with graphic-intensive files and for processing PostScript files, Acrobat Distiller is also included. Both PDF Writer and Distiller have options for reducing .PDF document size by compressing graphics (using JPEG for color graphics, and LZW, RLE or CCITT Group 3 for monochrome images). Distiller provides more detailed controls, like the ability to adjust images to specific resolutions.

Acrobat provides several options for reducing the font information stored in each document, including substituting Multiple Master fonts or by storing only the necessary characters in display fonts. Acrobat supports both TrueType and Type 1 fonts.

Font management was a shortcoming of earlier Acrobat versions, which required Adobe Type Manager (ATM). Although just an inconvenience for some, it was a serious problem for Windows NT users who could not run ATM. Acrobat Pro 2.1 solves this problem by internally incorporating an ATM subset.

Acrobat Pro 2.1 also adds multimedia support. Reader and Exchange include a Movie plug-in tool that lets you display QuickTime and .AVI files. You choose whether to display a control panel, and whether the video file runs as part of the existing page or in a floating window.

Weblink, another new plug-in for Exchange and Reader, lets you automatically connect to the World Wide Web by clicking on an Internet URL address in a .PDF document. Weblink's capabilities are a logical extension to Acrobat's hypertext links, and .PDF files are becoming a popular way to distribute formatted documents over the Web.

Acrobat's performance and ease of use have been improved, too. I had no trouble creating .PDF documents from business applications using PDF Writer and had equal success with Distiller processing complex Adobe PageMaker and CorelDRAW files. The fidelity of text and graphics was superb, both on-screen and printed. In most cases, the Acrobat document was smaller than the original file.

I only have two gripes with Acrobat Pro 2.1. At $595, it isn't cheap. You can opt for the standard $195 Acrobat Exchange 2.1 package (without Distiller), but if you are working with graphics, you'll need Distiller. My second beef is that Exchange offers sophisticated search capabilities with stem, phonetic and thesaurus matching, but it only works with indexes produced by Acrobat Catalog--a separate $500 program.

Still, there's a lot to like about Acrobat Pro 2.1. With support for Windows 3.x, 95 and NT, as well as MS-DOS, Macintosh and UNIX--and the ability to link to just about anything--Acrobat just might help save a tree or two.

--Info File--
Adobe Acrobat Pro 2.1
Price: $595; upgrade from Acrobat Pro 2.0, $89; upgrade from Acrobat Pro 1.0, $199
In Brief: Acrobat Pro 2.1 adds support for more platforms and new plug-ins for linking to multimedia files and Internet Web browsers.
Adobe Systems
800-833-6687, 415-961-4400