home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- TOM'S COMPUTER NOTES FOR MAY 1990
-
- Public Domain
-
- LZEXE VERSION .91 works lots better than .90 did. A few programs
- are no-no's such as QUATTRO and QUICKEN. But something like
- POCKET ADDRESS BOOK shrank from 110K to 25K, quite a reduction in
- size. (Looking through the PAB code revealed a lot of "air" so
- that program really benefitted.) Folio's PREVIEWS went from 127K
- to 71K. RIGHTWRITER however, gave me the "not enough memory to
- run" message after being shrunk.
-
- FB (FastBoot) is another one off the BBS that works well. I
- reboot in 10 seconds with it and 36 seconds without it. It is a
- 1K TSR. Drawback: On my machine with my setup it needs a 128K
- file on the hard drive to know how to restore (boot) the
- computer. Oh well, what's another 128K. I have recovered that
- much disk memory with LZEXE...... WHOOPS!!! I was experimenting
- with FB, where it should be in my AUTOEXEC.BAT files, and blew a
- directory or two. So, here is a chance to test out PC TOOLS
- REBUILD thought I. Just a few hours before I had run OPTUNE,
- SWEEP>> SORT N, and MIRROR.COM. So, I ran REBUILD. I got part of
- my DOS DIRectory back, starting at the files in about the middle
- of the alphabet. At that point (it was midnight) I should have
- quit. But no, I had to press on with NORTON DISK DOCTOR. Due to
- operator error I then proceeded to really mess things up good.
- Now that I look back on it I see what should have been done.
- Haste makes waste (and ruined directories.)
-
- WORD PERFECT OFFICE 3.0 will probably be out by the time you read
- this. "OfficePC" replaces "Library." 3.0 isn't compatible with
- ver. 2.0 but conversion utilities are supplied. It's now heavily
- LAN oriented. Price is $149, $55 for an update.
-
- THE FACE OFF BETWEEN tax programs TURBOTAX and PC TAXCUT will be
- delayed 'till July or August. I'm still working on it. How come
- TURBOTAX doesn't have the form needed for getting a filing
- extension???? PC TAXCUT has the form. Turbotax has 118 files. PC
- TAXCUT has 9.
-
- IN CASE YOU WONDERED --- A 360K disk can have up to 112 files in
- the root directory. A 1.44 meg disk can have twice as many. My
- hard drive can have 512 files in the root. I suppose sub-dirs can
- hold the same numbers?
-
- NORTON COMMANDER Ver. 3.0 - How does it stack up to Ver. 2.0? I
- like the WordPerfect file reader which displays any WP file on
- screen at the touch of a key as if it were an ASCII file. There
- are readers for 1-2-3, WORDSTAR, etc. The ads say that it has
- QUATTRO viewing capability but that's only if you are storing
- files in non-compressed mode, ie., without using the builtin SQZ!
- Plus which I doubt anyone is doing. It now has a builtin screen
- blanker and the strangest "blank" screen I have seen! Otherwise,
- it's not much of an improvement over 2.0 just because 2.0 was
- already about perfect. How far can you take something that's so
- good to start with?
-
- LAST MONTHS PsL News had a lot of interesting stuff. Yet another
- SHEZ update. MaxiHost is a "quick and easy BBS" and on a single
- disk what less. ZComm is now ver. 17.52 on two disks but disk #2
- (docs) didn't change so I guess you could order just one disk.
- At last, a disk of Canadian Postal Codes for 5,900 towns. Search
- by code or by town and it's menu driven. How about a really good
- shareware BASIC compiler? It's disk #2363. Actually, I think it
- is a version of BASIC with compile capability. 4DOS was listed as
- a new upgrade, Ver 3.0. PageMe is a clever program and here is
- how I think it works: While you are away from home (or office)
- you get a phone call on your answering machine. Your computer
- (running PageMe) takes notice of this. After your answering
- machine has recorded the incoming call and hung up your computer
- goes to work via modem and dials your pageboy. When your pager
- goes "beep-beep" you know to call home and retrieve the waiting
- message. It will also serve as an alarm clock by calling your
- pager at a set time. Say, that sounds like a good way to get out
- of those long meetings! Thirty minutes into the meeting your
- pager goes off and you beg to be excused for some "pressing
- business.'
-
- FLASH: The May PsL News just arrived with writeups on four Forms
- Management programs. The best one is 100% (on the trial disk) of
- the registered version and it also happens to be the one that is
- the lowest in cost to register. All of the above was printed with
- permission of PsL News. You can get a free copy by calling
- 1-800-2424-PSL. Each issue has feature stories, expanded writeups
- of new programs and a condensed listing of all other programs in
- the PsL library.
-
- THE END