by: James E. Powell
No matter who you want to reach out and touch—or how you need to do it—CommSuite 95 has the necessary Windows 95 communications tools. Delrina's new communication coup (which I tested in beta) offers you the wherewithal for Internet, online service and bulletin board access, along with its flagship fax facility.
Cyberjack, the suite's Internet component, allows access to all key Internet services including the Web, ftp, telnet News, Usenet and Internet Relay Chat (IRC). Veronica, Archie and gopher are supported to help you locate what you need no matter where it is on the Net.
Cyberjack's GuideBook helps you store and manage all your Internet information. It comes with dozens of Web sites, newsgroups and names of downloadable files listed and arranged in folders. You can easily add your own items to any GuideBook folder. When you click on a site in a folder, Cyberjack launches the appropriate tool to access it. You can drag items from the GuideBook onto your desktop, creating true OLE 2.0 objects, not just shortcuts.
Net surfing couldn't be easier. Cyberjack will highlight an address and automatically launch the right program to access it. The browser saves previous pages and makes good use of cache, so your online sessions move along at a comfortable pace.
Cyberjack includes OLE 2.0 in-place activation. While viewing a fax, for example, you could click on an attached Word file and edit it using Word toolbars and menus.
Most of the changes to WinFax PRO 7.0 are relatively minor enhancements to the previous version (4.0). The program's interface now uses tabbed dialog boxes for program options, but the feature set still includes a scheduler for delayed or recurring faxing, group addressing and sending to multiple locations. There are more than 100 cover pages with automatic fill-in of variable information such as date, time, name and fax number.
Under Windows 95, WinFax PRO 7.0 can send or receive faxes in the background without crippling the performance of other applications. You can also access the Exchange phone book from WinFax. You can automatically forward received faxes to another number, and you can convert faxes into editable text using the built-in Xerox TextBridge OCR.
The WinComm PRO module can be used for access to online services or bulletin boards, or for point-to-point links with other PCs. Each connection setup—including scripts for CompuServe, GEnie, MCI and Dow Jones, which come with the program—is represented by an icon. The list of file-transfer protocols and terminal emulations is comprehensive. Among the terminal features are a scroll-back buffer and screen capture to a file. WinComm PRO supports TAPI modems and Winsock connections for telnet sessions. If you use an internal modem, you'll like the set of simulated LEDs that mimic a modem's status lights. Graphics in 31 formats can be viewed as they're downloaded, and you can scan downloads as they arrive to check for over 3,000 viruses.
Cyberjack, WinFax and WinComm were not fully integrated in the beta I tested, but Delrina said the shipping product will have an automated setup routine that will help configure TCP/IP stacks and work with your Internet service provider. The part of the integration that was working in the beta—the Delrina CommBar—showed the status of all communications sessions.
A menu option lets you dial into Delrina's Cyberjack server, download any upgrade the company offers and incorporate it into your own copy of the program.
From fax to ftp, CommSuite 95 supplies all the hooks you need for uncomplicated communications.
--Info File--
CommSuite 95
Price: $99 (street) Win 95 Software
In Brief: CommSuite is a comprehensive communications package for Windows 95. Delrina Corp.
800-268-6082, 408-363-2345
by: Chris O'Malley
It's not easy to love a communications program, but if you spend a lot of time online, HyperAccess 2.0 will win your affection. If it wasn't already the simplest, most versatile communications package for Windows, it almost certainly is now.
The HyperAccess interface is virtually untouched from the first Windows version. It's clean, customizable and complete. Right out of the box, it has icons representing connections to several popular online services, including CompuServe, Delphi and Dow Jones, as well as direct connect and generic BBS icons. Explicit buttons and status bars that even show modem LEDs lay out everything you need. Just about everything--from the button placement to the communications window's size--can be customized.
What version 1.0 for Windows made easy, version 2.0 further simplifies. A new setting-detection feature, dubbed CommSense, automatically figures out and sets the appropriate modem settings for parity, stop bits and data bits. You need only supply the phone number--and even that's not required for some preset sessions, such as MCI Mail and AT&T Mail.
CommSense is an excellent complement to the program's automatic scripting features. Automating the log-on sequence to a BBS or online service is as easy as typing in your name and password the first time you dial it up. HyperAccess will remember it from there.
Likewise, you can turn on its recording feature and play back entire sessions the next time, without getting bogged down in a scripting or programming language. (HyperAccess 2.0 has a programming language, though, and it generates standard C code to boot.)
HyperAccess 2.0 also takes measured steps toward addressing the Internet boom. An Internet session icon dials up the information highway, either indirectly through a shell account or directly via a TCP/IP network. HyperAccess 2.0 includes Telnet, Gopher and ftp buttons that help you link with other Internet computers and retrieve information. Noticeably missing, however, is any built-in browsing software for accessing the World Wide Web.
Version 2.0 has beefed up HyperAccess in a few other key areas. You can now use shared modems across a network (through NASI and NCSI servers). The program's Message Pad text editor can be used for real-time, online chats. For more business-like pursuits, HyperProtocol, Hilgraeve's proprietary file-transfer protocol, now uses RSA encryption. That's a big confidence booster if you're exchanging files via public lines or wireless services.
Exceptionally fast file transfers have been a HyperAccess hallmark, and that's as true as ever. The program supports all of the major communication protocols, including Xmodem, Ymodem, Zmodem and Kermit. But it's HyperProtocol that really delivers the goods, sending and receiving files markedly faster than the standard protocols. Of course, HyperProtocol must be available at both ends, so plan to buy at least two copies for the fastest possible transfers.
HyperAccess continues to provide extra protection when downloading files. Its HyperGuard filters files as they're received for viruses and lets you abort the process if it detects a virus.
But, for all of the big features, you'll probably grow to love HyperAccess for the little things, like its ability to dial second and third phone numbers when the primary is busy, or the convenience of storing separate dialing information for the office and the road. Then there's the quirky pleasure of setting your PC's clock by clicking on the program's atomic clock icon, which retrieves the precisely correct time from a government BBS.
Hilgraeve tempts ProComm users with a utility that quickly converts ProComm dialing directories into HyperAccess directories.
Okay, maybe it's not love. But there's an awful lot to like in HyperAccess 2.0.
Info File
HyperAccess 2.0
Price: $149; upgrade, $39.95 ($49.95 for DOS, OS/2 users)
In Brief: Version 2.0 of HyperAccess makes reaching out to the online world simpler with automatic modem settings and support for Internet sessions.
Disk Space Required: 2.3MB
System Resources: 2% (5% when online)
RAM: 2MB
Hilgraeve
800-826-2760, 313-243-0576
LapLink makes quick work of file transfer by comparing the original file with the destination file, then copying only the bytes needed to update the destination file. You can connect to a host with a greater display resolution than that of the PC you're working from and use LapLink's chat mode to explain your actions while you operate someone else's PC.
Traveling Software
800-343-8080, 206-483-8088.
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 a solid Windows 95 communications package that's appropriate for both novice and veteran communicators.
Disk Space: 7MB
System Resources: NA
RAM: 4MB (8MB recommended)
Mustang Software
800-999-9619, 805-873-2500