A graphic artist's work is (almost) never done. There are always files to convert from one format to another. Gryphon Batch It helps perform these critical image-processing and batch-mode operations. With its "tile" interface, Gryphon Batch It simplifies complex graphics-processing procedures and reduces production time.
Want to perform a color correction on a series of images? Just drag out a few tiles and link them together; Gryphon Batch It does the rest. The program's image utility performs tasks in succession by "linking" specific tiles. You can resize, adjust brightness and contrast, and convert several images to a different file format in a single batching process.
Gryphon Batch It saves the tiles that define a particular batch sequence. The application works in the background while you perform other tasks.
$199
Gryphon Software Corp.
619-536-8815, fax 619-536-8932
No software is poised to take advantage of Windows 95 like CAD programs. SolidWorks 95 takes steps to improve CAD by utilizing Win95's long filenames, 32-bit operating system, multitasking and resource management. The application brings the power of production-level solid modeling to the Windows desktop.
SolidWorks 95 forms the basis of a 3-D-centric design process. In 3-D-centric design, a fully detailed solid model is used as a master model for producing drawings and performing other downstream functions such as finite element analysis and numerical control programming.
Designed for mechanical engineers and designers, SolidWorks 95 features the FeatureManager for displaying the model and a list of features to build it.
$3,995
SolidWorks Corp.
508-371-2910, fax 508-371-7303
In a world full of dull documents and pedestrian Web pages, nothing grabs a reader's attention like 3-D.
Instant 3D for Windows 95 adds 3-D words and graphics to MS Word, PowerPoint or any Windows 95 document or presentation. Instant 3D allows users to turn any text into a 3-D object with, say, a wood- or chrome-like texture. It includes hundreds of 3-D clip-art objects.
$49
Visual Software
818-883-7900, fax 818-593-3737
Get a whole new image with Kai's Power Tools 3. The imaging program's new features include the KPT Lens f/x, which gives you control over effects like smudges, noise and Gaussian blur; the KPT Spheroid Designer, a 3-D ray-tracing engine to render custom 3-D spheres; and KPT Interform, which lets you mix multiple textures to create whole new textures. The KPT Texture Explorer creates new generations of visual effects with no tiling.
$199
MetaTools
805-566-6200, fax 805-566-6385
Drag 'n Draw 1.1 is a 32-bit version of the easy-to-use chart and diagramming program. The upgraded version, designed for Windows 95 and NT, supports OLE 2.0, long filenames and e-mail integration. You can drag and drop objects from libraries into a drawing, or create a custom work of art. The product will ship with diskettes for the 16- and 32-bit versions in the same box.
$79 (street)
DeltaPoint
800-446-6955, 408-648-4000
As Windows PCs make inroads into the graphics area traditionally dominated by Macs, the ability to share files is becoming increasingly important. Canvas 3.5 for Windows 95 allows Windows users to exchange graphics documents with Macintosh and Power Macintosh platforms. The program runs under Windows 95, 3.x and NT.
$399.95; $99.95 competitive upgrade
Deneba Software
305-596-5644, fax 305-273-9069
With Visual AccountMate, number crunchers can take full advantage of the power of Windows 95 and NT and the programming language of 32-bit Visual FoxPro.
Visual AccountMate's tools include Express Icons for quick access to common functions, Drill Down for convenient access to micro information in each field, Lookup for selecting macro information from extensive lists and View for revealing financial details behind summary totals.
Other features include Transaction Rollback--which prevents incomplete entries during a power failure--internal e-mail messaging and photo-imaging capabilities. Visual AccountMate links directly to Microsoft Excel and Lotus 1-2-3, includes multiple password-security levels and has a built-in Report Designer for drag-and-drop form customization. AccountMate consists of seven levels--System Manager, General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Sales Order, Purchase Order and Inventory Control.
Compiled version, $995; source-code version, $1,295; developer version, $1,795
SourceMate Information Systems
800-877-8896, 415-381-1101
Crush, a rather fancifully named program, can help you crush the competition or at least keep you from getting pounded by constantly changing market forces.
This interactive CD-ROM tool helps you develop marketing strategies and action plans.
Enter information about your company, and Crush's database refines marketing objectives and evaluates competitive strengths and weaknesses. It helps you identify and analyze trends and competitors, map competitive positions, and create reports, presentations and action plans.
Crush's tables and charts include a Competitive Database, Market Analysis, Positioning Charts, Action Planner and Reports Generator, and Mentor and Case Studies. The Competitive Database spells out your strengths and weaknesses against those of your competitors in relation to market trends and perhaps information from your spreadsheets. The Market Analysis defines your product and its target audience.
$499
Hands-On Technology
800-772-2580, 415-579-7755
WinMerge 2.1 lifts screen data from virtually any Windows-based application for point-and-shoot merging into word processing applications such as Microsoft Word, WordPerfect and Word Pro.
WinMerge lets you switch from a form letter with the click of a mouse, so you can create form letters with drop-in merge fields. You don't have to learn merge procedures, there's no need to manually type in merge commands, and you don't have to learn how to create and maintain OLE links.
$89 (direct)
Napersoft
800-380-1000, 708-778-0080
B-Coder 3.0 provides high-quality bar codes for labels, forms, coupons, book covers, invoices and other documents. Its full desktop publishing features--including color, rotation and bar-width reduction--give you complete control of the bar-code format. B-Coder comes in two versions, B-Coder Pro and
B-Coder DTP for desktop publishers with limited bar-code needs.
B-Coder Pro, $395; B-Coder DTP, $199
T.A.L. Technologies
800-722-6004, 215-763-7900
Barcode Anything lets you design and print bar codes directly from its database. The Barcode Anything Track database includes templates for items you're likely to bar code, and lets you set passwords and manage your bar-code data. Barcode Anything Scan is a scanning pen that reads and decodes bar-code types. The Barcode Anything Label software reads files from other applications, and prints to laser, dot-matrix and selected thermal printers.
$379
Zebra Technologies VTI
800-477-5589, 801-576-9700
ProSort 2.0 can presort and bar code 300,000 pieces of mail per minute, and provides optimum postal discounts from a user's database.
$595
Group 1 Software
800-368-5806, 301-731-2300
Tired of always tugging on your mouse's cable? Don't be trapped by your mouse--break free from that desktop web of wires with the Mitsumi Wireless Mouse.
This two-button cordless mouse communicates via radio to a receiver that attaches to your PC's standard serial port, and works from within about 3 feet of your computer. The Mitsumi Wireless Mouse features 400cpi resolution, a 4800bps baud rate and a retail price of about $50.
The receiver attaches to your PC via a 6-foot cable. You can place the mouse inside the receiver when you're not using the mouse.
The included lithium battery provides up to three years of power, assuming typical usage.
The Mitsumi Wireless Mouse works with any PCs running Windows 95, Windows 3.1, or DOS 5.0 or higher. It comes with a two-year warranty.
$49.95
Mitsumi Electronics Corp.
800-MITSUMI, 214-550-7300
The Interlink DeskStick saves desktop space and is more comfortable for your hands and wrist. It frees up space because it uses no mousepad. And--good news for lefties--it works with either hand.
The fingertip joystick controls the cursor, which eliminates repeated side-to-side hand motions and awkward wrist angles. Its Force Sensing Resistor converts changes in pressure applied by your finger into cursor movement.
The DeskStick is symmetrically designed with click buttons located on both sides.
The device provides standard serial or PS/2 mouse ports, is compatible with Microsoft Mouse, DOS, Windows 3.x and Windows 95 mouse drivers, and ships with VersaPoint software in case no driver is present.
$59.95
Interlink Electronics
800-340-1331, 805-484-1331
No, the P.I. Engineering WhyKeyKey isn't a CD-ROM title depicting the delights of a Hawaiian beach. It's an adapter for folks who feel that two keyboards are better than one.
The dual keyboard adapter uses the existing software interface to let you plug in and use two keyboards simultaneously. This would allow people who share a home PC or a workstation to each have their own setup.
$49.95
P.I. Engineering
800-628-3185, 517-655-5523
The Logitech TrackMan Marble uses an electronic sensing device instead of the usual trackball's system of rollers, shafts and wheels. You control cursor movement with a marble that sits atop the TrackMan. A sensor tracks the motion of the marble through dots printed on the bottom of the ball. This is designed to eliminate tracking problems caused by dust.
$99 (street)
Logitech
800-231-7717, 510-795-8500
The Mitsumi ZW 104 Keyboard provides three new Win95-specific keys that allow easy access to functions such as task switching, while two Application keys support Win95 application shortcuts. The keyboard also features ergonomically shaped keys and a 6-foot cable.
$34.95
Mitsumi Electronics Corp.
800-MITSUMI, 214-550-7300
The Corporate Source Star-Track is a cordless infrared trackball designed for remote one-handed cursor operation. The remote trackball weighs only about 2 ounces and has a range of up to 15 feet at 90-degree angles. The Star-Track runs on two AAA batteries, and comes with a recharger and presentation software.
$79.95
Corporate Source
800-722-7748, 714-582-1946
Maps and Data for Microsoft Office 95 combines with Excel to provide point-and-click analysis of a comprehensive set of market and demographic data. With this program, you can, for instance, identify the median income of potential customers, along with age patterns and housing descriptions.
The CD-ROM program provides more than 1,000 high-resolution maps of foreign countries and every U.S. state. Each state map contains eight map layers, including zip code boundaries, waterways, airports, railroads, landmarks and census tracks. Maps and Data's worldwide information includes data on population, age, marital and employment status, housing, school enrollment, occupation and gender. The program's data can work with MapInfo and Atlas GIS.
$99
MaconUSA
617-254-2295, fax 617-254-2883
FirstMap, a CD-ROM mapping program designed to work with Excel 95, can break down every major U.S. neighborhood into useful demographic sales information. Now you can have the type of marketing tools on your desktop that were previously the domain of large corporations.
The program includes boundary maps for counties, zip codes and census tracts. You can print FirstMap's full-color maps directly from Excel or embed them in Word, PowerPoint or other OLE-compliant software.
FirstMap contains hundreds of variables of U.S. census information, including age, sex, race, household composition and income figures. It provides information on national, state, city and even neighborhood levels.
$69
Wessex
800-892-6906, 708-501-3662
Turn business and travel data from more than one million destinations across the country into detailed street maps with Select Street Atlas.
The program packs a complete street map of the United States on one CD-ROM. It allows you to create a customized map of any area of the nation, with the help of the program's and your own databases. You can drag any of 100 icons onto the maps, add text and highlight routes or areas.
$99 (street)
Pro CD
800-992-2376, 508-750-0000
Project Updater picks up where Time Line and Microsoft Project leave off. The Windows 95-compliant client/server app automates project updating and status reporting through a centralized Oracle repository. It is aimed at managers of projects with over 20 team members working with Project 4 or Time Line 6 or higher.
Project Update Server and three client licenses, $9,995; additional licenses, $199 per user
Time Line Solutions Corp.
800-222-TLSC, 415-898-8200
Partition Magic 2.0 lets you reclaim lost disk space and makes Windows 95 more efficient by modifying your PC's File Allocation Table (FAT) file system. The program can resize clusters, more than double the size of the Windows 95 root directory for long filenames, and replace FDISK and FORMAT utilities with a faster graphical utility.
$49.95
PowerQuest Corp.
800-379-2566, 801-226-8977
FontMinder 3.0 makes it easier to preview and manage fonts in Windows 95 and 3.1. The utility's new version includes a tabbed interface. You can preview, print and install fonts with a right mouse-button click.
$79.95; upgrade, $24.95
Ares Software Corp.
800-783-2737, 415-578-9090
You should be the one who leads when you're dancing with business data, regardless of when you need it or where it resides on your network. Rumba Office 95/NT uses a notebook metaphor and OLE 2.0 support to let you control data access.
Rumba provides access to latent client/server capabilities on IBM mainframe and AS/400, Digital VAX and UNIX systems. The Rumba Notebook lets you organize and insert applications and information--wherever the resources reside--into tabbed notebook pages. Click on a notebook tab for the information you desire.
The Rumba Notebook accepts any OLE 2.0 server object. Rumba Office 95/NT also lets you manage network printers from a graphical console, so you can preview host print requests before committing to printing a job.
$500
Wall Data
800-915-9255, 415-856-9255
Fujitsu Microelectronics made its debut in the retail PC Card market by releasing a whole deck of cards--10 in all--for communications, multimedia and networking. All the FMI PC Card family products are interoperable, hot swappable and Plug-and-Play compatible. The communication cards--14.4 and 28.8 Fax/Modems, ISDN Interface and Serial Card--enable functions such as faxing and e-mail. The multimedia cards--SCSI 600 and 1200 Interface, and Stereo Sound--connect to presentation, entertainment and sound peripherals. The LAN cards--10BaseT and 10BaseT/2
Ethernet, and LAN/SCSI Combo--provide network connectivity.
From $169 to $600
Fujitsu Microelectronics
800-642-7616, 408-922-9000
Even if your laptop has never spoken to your NT server before, it can now serenade it with the help of the Eicon Diva ISDN card. The Diva card uses IP, IPX or PPP to connect notebooks (its PCMCIA version) and desktops (ISA version) to peer workstations, remote networks,
SNA mainframes, fax services, online services and the Internet.
ISA bus, $595; PCMCIA Type II bus, $696
Eicon Technology
800-803-4266, 214-239-3270
The HP PowerWise L1250 UPS entry to Hewlett-Packard's advanced Uninterruptible Power Supplies family is aimed at midsized networks and includes all its SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) software on a CD-ROM for easy administration. HP's new PowerWise Assistant tells you when something is wrong and predicts battery wear-out. The PowerWise software supports nearly all operating systems, including Windows NT.
$649
Hewlett-Packard Co.
800-533-1333, http: \\www.hp.com\netserver\prodinfo.html
Only 3.5 inches high, the Best Power Rackmount Fortress UPS models are designed for internetworking and communications professionals. The new no-break, line-interactive, sine-wave UPS products come in three models: 720VA, 1020VA and 1420VA. All are compatible with Best, CheckUPS, CheckUPS II, and SNMP interface and control products.
From $799 to $1,149
Best Power, a unit of General Signal
800-356-5794, 608-565-7200
LanSafe III 3.0 power management software protects Windows 95, NT and 3.x systems against power outages. It lets you customize shutdown functions on your network. LanSafe III saves works in progress and closes network devices in a sequence you design. The program thus saves critical workstation data to the server before routers and bridges shut down.
$99
Deltec Electronics Corp.
800-DELTEC1, 619-291-4211
The StarTeam players are a combined set of collaborative development tools from StarBase. Using a single user interface to help you maintain all project information within a central repository, the package includes version control, defect tracking, electronic conferencing, auditing and reporting systems (with charting). The Visual C++ edition integrates within the VC++ project window.
Version control features include check in and out, branching and merging, multiple directory support and fast sorting of project information. StarTeam can convert a PVCS project database. A side-by-side comparison utility compares different project file versions.
The defect tracking component is integrated with project files, so bugs are displayed when a file is checked in. Clicking on the defect changes its status to "fixed" and updates the audit trail. The Version History window allows direct version manipulation through a right-mouse click.
Standalone, $549; integration with Visual C++, $299
StarBase Corp.
800-997-8272, 714-442-4400
Wise Installation System 4.0 makes it easy for users to create installation programs for Windows, including both Win95 and NT. You create installations as a single .EXE file, or one per disk for multiple-disk installations.
With its Custom Dialog Editor, no programming is required. You can drag and drop installations without writing a line of code. It includes an installation expert for fast script creation. Wise comes with a 16-bit and 32-bit IDE. It supports calls to DLL-based functions, scans for DLL/VBX dependencies, and automatically compresses and splits your files across multiple diskettes. In addition, it also supports network, CD-ROM and ODBC installations.
Wise supports 256-color graphics and password-protected installations.
$199 (direct)
Great Lakes Business Solutions
800-554-8565, 313-981-4970
With VanGui, COBOL programmers can work in a visual environment and create true Windows applications using their familiar language syntax.
The design tool lets you design windows, add standard Windows and VBX controls, and change an object's properties or add event-handling logic in COBOL. You can also preserve business-critical legacy logic. It supports calls to over 150 Windows API functions, using COBOL parameters.
Including compiler and debugger, under $3,000
Ryan McFarland
800-RM-COBOL, 512-343-1010
VtoolsD for Windows 95 lets you build 32-bit Win95 device drivers with Microsoft or Borland C or C++ compilers. You can build optimized drivers for high-speed devices (including Plug-and-Play hardware), create dynamically loaded and pageable device drivers, or build drivers for virus checkers and security applications. The toolkit includes support for communicating between Win32 applications and device drivers, and a revised utility to generate VxD source code.
$495
Vireo Software
508-264-9200, fax 508-264-9205
Teams working in Visual Basic can design and document a project's requirements, as well as functional, internal and quality assurance specifications, with Vision StoryBoard 3.0. The program walks you and your customer through an application, capturing and annotating forms, controls and menus. Then it produces custom reports, complete project specifications or training materials, including screenshots. The SpecMaker feature can document all controls on a VB form, while SlideShow illustrates VB form transitions and logic flows using a graphical storyboard.
$249
Vision Software Tools
800-984-SOFT, 510-238-4100