Some New Programs
by Alan Zisman
(c) 1995. First
published in Our Computer Player, September 1995
Here are a number of new programs...
EMBLA-- The PC Mail Manager
This is a Windows 3.x mail program, for Unix or
Internet mail. It supports
IMAP (Internet Mail Access Protocol), which allows users to work with
mail
while it's still on the server, without downloading it to their
computer
first. It comes from Sweden, and some of the menus and dialogues have
an
unusual feel in English.
Contact:
ICL, Incorporated
11490 Commerce Park Drive
Reston, VA 22091 USA
703-648-3300/ 603-648-3326 fax
http://www.pro.icl.se/
CAPA-CD Pro
This $249.95 (US) software will be of more interest as
more and more
people start to produce their own CD-ROMs... it's a compression
program,
allowing users to squeeze more than the current 640 megs or so of data
onto a single CD disk. Like Stacker or DoubleSpace on your hard drive,
the end-user then loads a driver, and can access the CD as if it was a
higher-capacity disk. The amount of compression varies with the sorts
of
files being compressed-- graphics, for example, can often be highle
compressed.
Contact:
EWB
2111 Palomar Airport Road, Suite 220
Carslbad, CA 92009 USA
619-930-0440/ 619-930-0446 fax
DISKNET and PCwatchman-ACS PLUS
Two programs from the same company. While they can be
purchased and
used on their own, they are designed to work together.
DiskNet is an antivirus program, designed for network
use, covering
all computers connected to a network. It automatically scans any floppy
inserted into any computer on the network, certifying it as virus free,
or cleaning off any viruses present, and notifying the network
administrator.
A certified virus-free floppy can be used freely on the network, but as
soon as it used elsewhere, it will need to be re-checked. It also tried
to protect the boot sectors and files on all the hard drives on the
network.
A five-user license costs $499, and is compatible with NetWare, LAN
Manager,
and Banyan networks. It runs under Windows and OS/2.
PCwatchman-ACS Plus is a wokstation access control
program. If an unauthorized
user tries to boot up a network workstation, it shields the hard
drives,
keeping programs and data hidden and secure. It also keeps a log of all
programs executed, and will alert the network administrator of
unauthorized
access attempts. ACS sells for $179.
Contact:
Reflex
2100 196th Street SW, Suite 124
Lynnwood, WA 98036 USA
1-800-673-3539 / 206-776-2891 fax
JANNA CONTACT
With the popularity of Microsoft Office, a number of
companies have
released software that either adds itself to the toolbars of Office
products,
or mimics the interface of that product line.
Janna Contact describes itself as a a contact and
document manager for
MS Office users. You can work from a home base of a contact list, with
easily customizable information for each contact. You can connect
documents
to individual contacts, or groups of contacts... letting you easily
work
with all your files, correspondance, reports, and so forth, that are
connected
with that contact. The Document Manager feature allows you to work with
documents using long file descriptions, rather than DOS filenames, and
lets you drag and drop files, to fax them to a group of contacts.
E-mail
and scheduling features are also included.
contact:
Janna Systems, Inc.
3080 Yonge Street, Suite 6060
Toronto, Ontario M4N 3N1
416-7711/ 1-800-268-6107/ 416-3220 fax
info@janna.com
MATH DRILL
Math Drill is a local product, attempting to cover 70
different math
topics, with an age range of pre-school to teenage years. It was
developed
using FoxPro for Windows, and unfortunately, may be trying to cover too
much scope with the limited features of a database platform... it
suffers
in comparison with programs with more limited aims, but more exciting
and
professional output. Families with more than one child are forced to
install
the program multiple times for all their children to have access.
Strangely,
the developers consider this odd (and disk-space wasting) behaviour a
feature!
The developers have good intentions, and are local,
but we just can't
recommend this one.
Contact:
Norgunt Systems, Inc.
130-13500 Maycrest Way
Richmond, BC V6V 2J7
604-278-6708/ 1-800-338-2505/ 278-6708 fax
Digital Video Producer
Digital video production on personal computers is
still a pretty tentative
field-- hardware and software standards are still evolving, and the
resulting
output is rarely as impressive as users would hope.
In order to kick-start the field, at least on Windows
PCs, Microsoft
released a basic software toolkit... the Video for Windows package is
bundled
with many basic video-capture boards. On the high end, Adobe Premier
provides
many more features, and is available in both Mac (QuickTime) and
Windows
versions.
Asymetrix Digital Video Producer is aiming for the
middle-ground. It
lacks all of Premier's features (and is only available for Windows),
but
is much more sophisticated than the bare-bones Microsoft software.
Still,
it is quite easy to use.
It makes it easy to capture a video, and to edit it
into a final product.
It permits special effects for transitions and overlays, and includes a
number of filters. It supports a number of compression techniques and
output
formats. It's manual is short and understandable, and gives good
background
for newcomers to movie-making.
Contact:
Asymetrix
110-110th Ave, NE, Suite 700
Bellevue, WA. 98004-5840 USA
TIME LINE
Now up to version 6.0, Time Line is a
professional-level project management
program, from Symantec, for Windows. It's not an easy program to get up
and running with, but it more than makes up for this with a hige array
of features. It lets users take charge of multiple projects, and can
organize
a group of projects into a multi-level outline-view.
Users can view resources, calendars, selection
criteria, or create their
own customized criteria for viewing projects. It organizes its data
into
an SQL-database, which can be used to generate reports.
There are some good tutorial to help get you started,
and good use of
interface elements, such as tool bars, and drag and drop.
Not cheap, at $695 (US list), but if you're trying to
stay on top of
multiple large, complex projects, this could be money well-spent.
Contact:
Symantec Corp.
10201 Torre Avenue
Cupertino, CA 95014-2132
408-253-9600/ 1-800-441-7234/ 408-253-3968 fax