Dec 95 New Products

Complied by Dave Raffo

Fittingly enough, Now Up-to-Date is now updated for Windows users. The time and contact manager was previously a Macintosh-only product, but Now Up-to-Date for Windows 95 and Now Up-to-Date for Windows 3.1 make it a multiplatform solution with an Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) design that allows PC and Mac users to share information.

Now Up-to-Date consists of a Quick Access Manager, Personal Calendar, Contact Manager, scheduling tools and built-in TAPI support. Remote users can add meetings, tasks and contacts while working offline, and the program supports OLE 2 for attaching documents.

Quick Access Manager's toolbar lets you see your most important information at a glance. Its QuickDay feature shows you today's schedule. Use QuickContact for one-click access to names and numbers, or select the QuickPad to jot down facts in a flash.

Now Up-to-Date also supports tabbed dialog boxes and right- mouse-button shortcuts.

$99 (street); competitive upgrade, $49.95.
Now Software
800-722-5963, fax 503-274-0670.

PowerPlains transports your Great Plains Accounting software to the Windows environment. PowerPlains provides a graphical version of GPA and uses DDE (dynamic data exchange) to integrate accounting data with Word, Ami Pro and WordPerfect. Its ability to merge and print data fields in word processing documents makes PowerPlains particularly useful for direct marketing, customer surveys and sales letters.

Available modules include System Manager, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, PowerP.O.S. (point of sale), General Ledger, Sales Order and Inventory. More modules will be available in 1996. In order to run a PowerPlains module, it's necessary to have the corresponding GPA module.

$295 to $495 per module.
Applied Management Systems
800-FYI-4775, 203-488-4775.

If your job includes gleaning information from reports, Monarch 2.0 will shed as much light as the lamp on top of a miner's hat. Monarch helps you find and use the information you need by "report mini"ng, a system of extracting data from familiar documents.

Instead of tapping into a central database, Monarch downloads the information from report files stored in your PC or network.

Single user, $499; upgrade, $99; eight-user network
license, $2,000
Datawatch Corp.
800-445-3311, 508-658-0040.

Time Line 6.5 helps you keep track of projects more efficiently by integrating project information with business applications stored in other databases.

Its Quick Start online help system offers step-by-step instructions to build a project, and the Enhanced Menu System lets you add Time Line to Office, Perfect Office and SmartSuite with a common look and feel.

$695.
Time Line Solutions Corp.
800-222-TLSC, 415-898-1919.

The Asymetrix Multimedia Creative Suite bundles four products that will add spice to your presentations. The package includes Compel 2.0, an upgraded version of the multimedia presentation system that now includes an outliner to organize your presentations and a spell checker to eliminate errors.

Asymetrix 3D F/X, Asymetrix Digital Video Producer and MediaBlitz round out the suite. You can use 3D F/X to create three-dimensional images, while Digital Video Producer gives you drag-and-drop editing and importing capabilities for digital video and audio. MediaBlitz lets you add multimedia effects to Windows applications.

$199 (street).
Asymetrix Corp.
800-448-6543, 206-637-1500.

The ViewSonic 17EA includes a flat screen for better image display and built-in stereo speakers. The 17-inch monitor has a 16-inch viewing area and a maximum resolution of 1280x1024. It has a 0.28mm dot pitch and maximum 120Hz refresh rate. The ViewSonic 17EA has an antiglare, antistatic Invar shadow mask, is Plug-and-Play compatible and includes on-screen controls that let you choose any of 20 settings. The monitor meets the MPRII emission standards.

$795.
ViewSonic Corp.
800-888-8583, 909-869-7976.

With the Samsung SyncMaster 6Ne, the company adds a 17-inch entry to its line of value monitors aimed at small/home offices and families. The 6Ne has a 0.28mm dot pitch, a maximum resolution of 1280x1024 at a 60Hz refresh rate, and a nonglare, antistatic screen with Invar shadow mask. The actual viewing area is 15.75 inches. The monitor is Plug-and-Play compatible and meets the VESA DDC 2B, Energy Star, NUTEK and MPRII standards.

$699.
Samsung Electronics
800-SAMSUNG, 201-229-4000.

For less than $300, you can turn your 486 PC into a Pentium-class machine with an Evergreen 586 processor upgrade. The Evergreen 586 is powered by a Cyrix 5x86 chip, and converts a standard 168-pin 486 desktop into a 100MHz 586. The upgrade has a 64-bit 586 processor core and an 80-bit floating-point math unit. It increases clock speeds from 25MHz to 75MHz, from 33MHz to 100MHz and from DX2/66 to 100MHz. The Evergreen 586 replaces the original 486 CPU or can be installed in the OverDrive socket.

Starts at $299.
Evergreen Technologies
503-757-0934, fax 503-757-7350.