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1. MarketWire Volume 2 No 2 News From MarketWare Computer Systems May 1991 Everex Shipping 486 20SX Systems By JACK IVERS By the time you read this Everex should be shipping 486 20SX systems making them one of the first vendors to do so Everex has announced both STEP and Tempo 486 20SX machines the Tempo is scheduled to ship in late April the STEP in early May The Tempo system includes a 128K external cache in addition to the 486 s 8K internal cache and has a maximum RAM capacity of 32Mb The STEP system has the same memory architec ture as other high end STEP systems 386 33 486 25 and 486 33 which means 128K to 256K in external cache and up to 64Mb of DRAM The Tempo machine comes in small and large chassis options while the STEP machine is available in small large and Tower configurations The real question is What the heck is a 486 20SX and why do I need one The Intel i486SX chip is similar to the 1486 except for clock speed and the lack of a built in math coprocessor Everex s 486SX systems are socketed for Intel s 1487SX coprocessor chip Price performance is what really sets the i486SX apart Everex reports that their 486 20 SX systems offer better performance than STEP 386 33 systems as fast as they come yet the price is just sli
2. I d prefer not to know what s going to happen a year from now depressing enough today But Jack found me Worksheets On A Disk put together by Cincinnatian Frank Doerger and now I m fascinated There are 40 worksheets WK1 files on this disk and they do all sorts of things It s as if somebody had started a little Lotus workshop and had hammered out 40 simple useful tools while showing how each was made in hopes that I ll catch on and make some of my own Delightful Many I can use right now without alteration For example ABSENTA and ABSENTB These worksheets track employees absences from work The dates the hours and the reasons The difference between the two worksheets is that ABSENTB allows you to sum total time off for a given employee This is a godsend for my business because periodically Goofy goes AWOL and a couple of months later my neighbor comes by with an armful of black puppies If I track Goofy carefully I think I can build a what if Goofy was locked in the garage worksheet that will save both the embarrassment and the expenses of having to raise dozens of gigantic Gordon Setter Golden Retriever hybrid vigored crotch sniffing car chasing mole hunting bird harassers The disk pays for itself right there AGINGREC lists outstanding invoices MarketWire 574 4222 and computes the number of days the invoices have remained unpaid Now I can track how many days it t
3. disk manager software would pollute MarketWire 574 4222 my machine that he wanted to use DOS 4 01 But DOS 4 01 is sucha memory hog and Ventura is too that those programs were for me incompatible The solution was DR DOS because it is more than DOS 4 01 and takes up half the RAM Less RAM than 3 3 as a matter of fact So the Windows War that I had expected went something like Desert Storm the Mother So the Windows Fax 574 4293 The hall is littered with stuff Bob has thrown at me and I m to the point of collapse my voice sounds like a little girl s and I m sobbing with glee Haven t had so much fun since the late sixties and the introduction of Maui Wowee on the mainland Editor s Note DOS 5 0 is nearly here we hear rumors of a summer release date Once it s available and debugged DOS 5 of all Walkovers should offer the Basically I plugged it War that I had advantages of DR DOS in and it worked expec ted went without the FUD fear SameCONFIG SYS uncertainty and doubt and AUTOEXEC BAT something like IBM s three rules of files as in the old Desert Storm selling factor machine except that Jack Ivers DR DOS has its own formof BOOTCON so I eliminated the need foraCONFIG SYS interrupter On boot I can pop to a Windows setup a DES QView setup plain vanilla ora special QEMM Ventura setup for running my PS600 card with Ventura Publisher I haven t and
4. Korea Taiwan and other far east countries under short term large purchase contracts None of them knew MarketWare from Adam None of them had any reason to give us special treatment keep us out of trouble and none of them had any incentive to avoid selling us the proven duds and leftovers from their bad buy inventory If you don t know it yet take it from us there s a lot of garbage out there We know because we often have to try to integrate these machines into larger networks no fun at all So right now we re still looking for cheap machines that we dare to sell to May 1991 They wanted us to ex plore the territory making our Clients the guinea pigs our staff the goats 574 4222 our clients We want to We d love to have machines that allow us to make a reasonable profit at extremely competi tive prices Meanwhile though Everex prices continue to drop right along with the rest of the industry And we know our Everex boxes like we know the backs of our hands And that brings us back to Red Adair s state ment We are experts in Everex equipment We know how to build networks with Everex equipment that fly and keep flying We can safely say that we are as competent at our jobs as any company that installs networks in Cincinnati and better than most We reasmall company with key well trained people We re not a chain so we re not stuck with a bureaucracy that prevents
5. MarketWare Computer Systems Continued from page 1 drive and 386 20SX with 60Mb drive The Tempo LX is a hot product see hands on feedback in the On The Bench section Everex is now bundling Microsoft Windows 3 0 along with an Everex two button serial mouse with every STEP and Tempo 386SX and above they ship The mouse is built for Everex by Logitech and while not as fancy as Logitech s new MouseMan it s definitely good enough to use with a rounded ergonomic shape unlike the junk some manufacturers bundle with their machines Allin all a welcome addition worth at least 150 to the buyer Figure this into your price performance calculation when shopping STEP and Tempo systems versus other vendors You might be surprised to note that the new 486 20SX is available in a small footprint version This is a trend at Everex wherever possible new motherboards are baby configu rations that will fit into a small footprint chassis Everex s STEP 386 33 motherboard is a baby configuration and soon all of the STEP and Tempo 386SX motherboards will be babies Lots of power in a small package Everex s Abaton division is breaking new ground in the PostScript laser printer arena with their LaserScript LX With alist price of 1 999 this printer offers significant upgrades to the original LaserScript which listed for 2 999 The LX is based around a 25MHz RISC processor for faster PostScript
6. That night I reinstalled the PS600 software and voila no problems Evidently the software either has hidden files on the disk or locks itself onto disk sectors I m not going to try to find out until I m ready to reinstall the program another time just for the MarketWire MarketWare Computer Systems sake of curiosity Next Iinstalled the Intel Communication Co processor fax modem board Worked like a champ first go round Thanks Intel I put the skin back on the CUI machine and there it sits a fully operational tower 386 33 screamer running DR DOS with 8 Mb of RAM 2 200 Mb SCSI drives operating at 15ms and a Super VGA display A 5 000 package That kind of money would have bought me an IBM XT operating at 4 7MHz with a pair of 20 meggers and an EGA display five years ago I can prove it I still have the invoices As far as the cache conflict with the tape backup card is concerned P1 figure that out at a later date I had the same problem with my old machine when I first put it together but I forget what I did to get the card happily nestled in among the rest At that time floppy tape drives were not available for 386 machines without some tricky hardware workarounds a tiny card living between the floppy cable and the tape drive My next major upgrade will be installing a CD ROM drive and software I can t wait The moral of this story Unless you have a lot of time and enjoy staying up
7. a bunch of 486 25MHz workstations remember that what turned OA into meaningless drivel in the first place was fanaticism Just because there s a way to control the office thermostat from the receptionist s tube doesn t mean it s a good idea If your secretarial pool has always worked with a keyboard they may revolt at the addition of a rodent If you are working within a budget you may not want to shell out the bucks for all the memory and processing power that it takes to run Windows efficiently especially if your accounting applica tion can t run in a Windows environ ment If your managers still dictate their letters there is no sense putting PageMaker on their desks What you will find however is that a consistent and conservative application of the aforementioned OA goals will provide the most efficient path to cutting inefficient effort in the work place It can be as simple as sending accounting reports to a file instead of to the printer so that a secretary does not have to retype the totals It can be as dull as adding an envelope bin to the laser printer This is an approach that harkens back to the old Buck a Day program If each employee suggests one thing that saves a company a buck aday What killed OA was it was too broad in scope it was too much too fast OA was Vaporware incarnate This is Greater Cincinnati not Walt Disney s vision of EPCOT If there are surviving OA specialis
8. all night for several days in a row leave the upgrading to self proclaimed experts like the folks at MarketWare who simply love this kind of physical and mental abuse Real Estate Solution By BILL ALLENDORF Tom Walsh walked into MarketWare with a lot of questions and a need for answers His wife Kay is a residential real estate agent covering the western side of Cincinnati She wanted to compile a mailing list of suspects and feed them to a contact management system As a house went up on the market she wanted to send a custom MarketWire 574 4222 Fax 574 4293 letter to potentially interested people including a photo of the property and a fact sheet For contact management Tom chose ACT from Contact Software It had the power to handle the thousands of names Kay was collecting and do selective searches to find all the neighbors in a given area Word Perfect 5 1 could take the resulting file and create the custom letter The only problem left was the photo Kay had been using the MLS photographs which were generally small and poor Oh dear did you hit that little bump in the road quality A copier could reproduce the sheet at 5 cents per page What Tom and Kay wanted was a way to embed the photo in the letter and save copying charges Kay wanted to take a Polaroid photo graph of the house and scan it A Logitech Scanman could handle the Polaroid print easily At under 350 the Scanm
9. cable or wire had jiggled loose I hit DEL at boot time and found that the CMOS appeared OK except that the hard drives were listed as not in stalled evidently the way SCSI MarketWire 574 4222 drives have to be setup I left the CMOS alone and started jiggling wires No luck Everything looked fine Then I switched power supply cables from one drive to another hoping that the dead drive was the C and that a change would bring it up to the detriment of the D That worked Drive C booted and drive D remained lost Power supply wiring So I wiggled every little red and black wire in every socket of the power supply cables and wouldn t you know a little red wire had loosened slightly in one of those plastic plugs that are so damned hard to stick together and pull apart In my life with computers this particular problem has come up perhaps twenty times it may have something to do with how the car hits the ground after becoming airborne over railroad crossings and quick rises in the country DR DOS loomed as an ugly black cloud as I bloodied my hands pushing and pull ing cards in and out of the CUI tower roads I have to traverse every day at 90 MPH to get to work at a reasonable time Things shake loose After that first hour the real problems began I plugged in the card for my Maynard 60 meg tape drive so that I could move the 270 megs of software from my old machine
10. card into its slot Crossing my fingers I hopped into Ventura and tried to print the first page of the last newsletter through the 600X600 video port LPT3 The computer burped as it tried to load the printer driver and promptly fell into a deep coma necessitating a cold reboot Damn Same old procedure check hardware connections and switch settings first then software setups I reseated the card tightened the cables and tried again No go I reset the interrupt addresses by flipping switches on the card a dozen no goes I changed slots No go Within two hours I d concluded that hardware was not the seat of the problem I was having with the PS600 Possible software conflicts interrupts and DMAs memory management software PS600 software DR DOS The DR DOS possibility was put on the back burner because that meant I d 574 4222 software carried across the proper CONFIG SYS and AUTOEXEC BAT files from my old machine as well as all the PS600 and Ventura software That involved booting up both computers and comparing directories and files Everything had moved correctly The interrupt address for the PS600 was 338H and was not in conflict with any MarketWare Computer Systems from socialism to free enterprise in the computer industry and on Liars Poker a book my brother Bill sent so I could watch Free Enterprise roll on into Hell via the bond market Back to bed by 11 hit the Cincinnati office of M
11. flexibility and allows alarge number of nodes to coexist at a single Ethernet level without repeat counts something not possible when you interconnect standalone hubs Network management is the other big benefit of high end products Imagine a network of 100 nodes Now picture a flaky network problem certain users get knocked off the network at certain times and you can t quite pin down what s happening This is the exact scenario that network management is designed to help with With a network management like NetWorth s EtherManager you can see exactly what is happening and fix the problem High end products are predictably more expensive but the payback is quick On a network of 50 or more stations a high end chassis based system with network management will normally pay for itself in under a year based on reduced network downtime and saved man hours NetWorth s Series 4000 is a favorite of ours since it provides high end functionality at a price not far above the low end What next More of the same continu ing price reductions on the low end and increasingly powerful features on the high end Whatever the segment of the market your company fits into the news is good MarketWare Computer Systems PC as HP s Open View Manager does and can run from any station on the network including monochrome systems Other interesting EtherManager capabilities O EtherManager allows you to define a
12. know their stuff And so we can absolutely guarantee you that we ll save you money over the long term It s our business to do just that Of course talk is cheap There s no reason for you to believe that what we re saying Now we p A on these know you We re nota chain SO we re not pages is true can buy stuck with a bureaucracy that In that cheaper R regard we ve ice prevents us from going out of assembled Mail order our way to deliver the very best some companies in equipment and service no references for abound K you with matter the cost people who cheap and will tell you sometimes about our excellent machines But even the very best get themselves into a tangle especially when they re part of a network Then you have to bring in the experts that came with the machine s warranty Experts that may or may not respond quickly and may or may 9 abilities The list is available upon your request These are busy folks but they re willing to briefly share their experiences with us Don t pester them but give them a call for a MarketWare review MarketWire MarketWare Computer Systems Project WIN STORM and More By TOM IVERS A few months ago I promised with my teeth set under heavy pressure that I would just for you get a Windows 3 environment up and running I ve done that with my new CUI 386 33 box MarketWare s low end clone towering three feet high on
13. machines in a medium price range When the day comes that Everex is no longer reliable or competi tive we ll be ready with a new platform we re continuously exploring the territory Further we work ona low margin one that is below most of the rest of the industry in order to ensure that we stay competitive In fact we recently went shopping for a box that would beat Everex s prices by 500 to 1 000 in order to compete with some of the low end boxes that are deluging the local market We found several That was the easy part Next we had to look at reliability both of the box and of the supplier Some of the companies were switching around from one motherboard to another depending on available supplies This is no good for us because we want to stock replacement motherboards and other key components for everything we sell and we want to know all the quirks of the machines we re putting out in the field It s one thing to sell individual computers to individual users another to sell and support dozens of machines at a single site where when the network crashes big money is involved in lost client man hours You just can t take unnecessary chances by basing decisions strictly on price Then we had to consider the cost of bringing on another line of computers Initially itsa matter of bringing in a parts inven tory for the new line typically about 30 000 At the same time the entire organi
14. my desk its guts revealed see Jaws IV the saga of the setup I ve got two non windows programs running right now in separate windows with Windows running under DR DOS and its own memory manage ment software So far no glitches and I have only myself to thank for that Myself and DR DOS Now I can chuckle as I pass Bob s office late at night and hear him yelp and howl as Windows aborts in the middle of a session under Microsoft DOS Brother Bob the Windows Phreak the Pagemaker True Believer our DOS Guru and NetWare Engineer I blythefully run PowerPoint Paradox Excel dBASE Corel Draw WordPerfect and TextWare two or three at a time and never hit a bump Windows treats Bob just like the race horses used to treat my brother in law Pat They d step on him bite him or kick him every day sometimes several times ina day At that time Pat was the horse expert like Bob is our Windows expert now Hold on I ve got to take a break I m laugh ing so hard I m tearing up and can t see the screen It was pure serendipity that the horses liked me and it is the same as far as I can tell that DR DOS and Windows 3 get along so well Good luck is so much more fun than hard work Here we had a pair of SCSI 200 meggers and I wanted big partitions really 4 100 meggers would have done but what I got was a pair of 200Mb partitions and Bob was so afraid that DOS 3 3 s COMMAND COM perverted by some
15. need more room move up to the Megacube which is now shipping We ve got multiple NetWorth Series 4000 chassis based 10BASE T hubs on the bench now along with NetWorth s EtherManager network management system For 30 node networks this is the way to go A single chassis can support up to 120 nodes with no ports lost to hub interconnection a drawback of standalone hubs The biggest benefit though is the availability of the EtherManager network management software While providing network management at the physical and data link layers like other network manage ment products EtherManager also provides node level network manage ment Because its data collection facilities ran as VAP or NLM ona network server and because special graphics are not required Ether Manager does not require a dedicated May 1991 Fax 574 4293 574 4222 Network Corner The State of the 1OBASE T Marketplace By JACK IVERS 10BASE T Ethernet is the IEEE stan dard for running an Ethernet network over standard telephone grade cable 10BASE T Ethernet offers the full 10Mbps bandwidth of Ethernet with the advantages of a star topology and inexpensive easy to manage cabling 10BASE T Ethernet networks have two primary components network cards and 1OBASE T hubs or concentrators which act as the central connecting point in the star topology 10BASE T Ethernet started out expen sive on a typical 15 node network you d pay 4 500
16. us from going out of our way to deliver the very best in equipment and service no matter the cost We re building our business slowly a step at a time planting seeds of confidence in our client base fully 75 of our sales are repeat sales to existing customers We have to be careful not to grow too fast not to expand our customer base beyond our capacity to serve it with alacrity and efficiency MarketWare Computer Systems not be familiar with the environment or have an inkling of a solution to the problem at hand We know you can get networks slapped together from a hundred different sources We know there a dozens of ways to save on up front networking costs We know too that you can easily get yourself into big trouble very quickly trouble that will cost you far more money than you originally save by going to the wrong source or by trying to hack together a do it yourself system We re doing our best to help you avoid the big mistakes We put on regular seminars which are educational not sales pitches so that when you decide to network you ll be armed with knowledge that will keep you out of trouble We offer our own expertise and take full responsibility for every system we put in We supply reliable equipment with rock solid warrantees We go out of our way to help you solve problems caused by other suppliers We want you to know exactly what it means to be dealing with people who specialize and who
17. I won t except for review purposes move into the Windows version of Ventura That s like threatening Lady Luck with rape And here I am writing an article about um oh yeah TextWare in one window with TextWare over there in another DOC2 of WordPerfect waiting in the wings my CUI stuffed to the gills with cards of every shape and description the scuzzies silently sucking up the bytes of my automatic timed backup with everything I ever wrote about ten megabytes available for viewing and plagiarizing on the other side of an lt ALT gt lt ESC gt command Believe me it s a pleasure akin to driving a 70 foot yacht up the Intercoastal Waterway Every ten minutes or so I go fora Pepsi or toward the restroom and as I pass Bob s office I make it a point to say boo or stamp my foot or clap my hands You d be surprised at how many times such an action coincides with another Windows lockup or crash 10 the Mother of all Walkovers TextWare By TOM IVERS Any word processor worth its salt as well as any self respecting file manager will allow the user to take a quick peek at any text file That s simply wonderful for me because once I name and save a text file immediately and forever forget what s init no matter how careful Iam to make the file name reflect what s inside When I write a book I ve written four I never remember what s in one chapter or another until I tak
18. Ifyou dlike to learn more aboutnetworking sign up for the MarketWare Networking seminar The nexttwo semi nars are Tuesday May 21st and Tuesday June 18th Space is limited call to reserve a spot Cabling Specifications for 10BASE T Ethernet 10BASE T Ethernet runs over the same type of cabling used in telephone systems unshielded twisted pair UTP cabling All cable runs are home runs i e from an office or workstation back to the wiring closet which holds the hub The recommended maximum length of any run is 328 feet but with high performance cable runs of 500 feet are possible Where runs of over 500 feet are necessary fiber optic transceivers and cabling can be substituted for UTP allowing cable lengths in the kilometer range 10BASE T Ethernet uses two twisted pairs We strongly recommend pulling more pairs than actually required Four pair cable for example is a much better choice since it is far more widely used provides two extra pairs in the event of breakage and costs little more than two pair cable Solid conductor cable should be run in the walls between the wall jack and the punch down block in the wiring closet the MarketWire punch down connectors on either end are usually designed for solid conduc tors For the PC to wall connection and anywhere else you need RJ45 connectors stranded cable is better because it is more flexible and makes a more reliable connec
19. Now the company is moving away from cheap clones and coming back to the middle ground high quality compatible systems Among such systems Everex is a strong contender Everex s compatibil ity lab earns its keep time and again the mainframe terminal emulator works perfectly as does everything else they ve tried Everex s commitment to quality pays off as well you can put an Everex system on the desk of a former Compaq owner and not get look and feel gripes Speed also helps Everex systems consistently outperform their Compaq counterparts Finally while you can t get two Everexs for the price of one Compaq you probably can get three for the price of two Was this company wrong in its bout with Clone Fever Probably not Sometimes you have to see for yourself especially when you get twenty different stories from twenty different resellers But we agree with their final analysis for most companies and most applications high quality compatible systems are the best corporate PC standard MarketWire MarketWare Computer Systems Worksheets on a Disk By TOM IVERS Have you ever wondered how to use Lotus 1 2 3 Or Quattro Pro I mean really use these versatile spreadsheets with all their macros and functions I confess here and now that I ve never made it past simpletedger sheets and P amp L statements certainly not into complex what if s or consolidated reports or any of that stuff Truth be known
20. T Ethernet Wiring Diagram USED BY 10BASE T O NOT USED BY 10BASE T TWISTED PAIRS White Orange Used by Orange White 10BASE T White Green Green White White Blue Blue White White Brown Brown White BOTH ENDS ARE ALIKE Use 22 24 26 AWG Unshielded Twisted Pair UTP wire DO NOT use modular flat cables the type used to connect telephones to the wall This wiring scheme matches AT amp T s Premesis Distribution System Note Although this is a straight through wire scheme it is important to keep color pairs in the proper location Do not forget that the GREEN pair uses PIN 3 and PIN 6 May 1991 19 MarketWire
21. a networking We will hold this seminar on the third Tuesday of every month starting in May Exact dates 5 21 6 18 7 16 8 20 9 17 The fee 75 per attendee Call to reserve a spot MarketWare has launched TSP our Total Support Plan for networked and standalone PC users TSP provides comprehensive installation training and technical support services for your complete computer platform soft ware hardware and network Basically TSP is an alternative to billing by the hour You pay us a given amount up front or monthly and we provide as much help as you need We find this approach better than hourly billing for both parties you don t have to worry about being nickle and dimed to death with hourly charges and we don t have to hassle with hourly billings TSP is generally billed in two chunks an initial fee for product installation and training and an ongoing monthly fee for product support We figure TSP pricing using a product size complexity matrix that we developed under Quattro Pro Network support pricing for example takes into account the network operating system the number of attached nodes and the degree of complexity of the network We offer both TeleSupport and OnSite TSP plans If you elect to go with TeleSupport and need on site assis tance we bill at a 25 discount off our normal hourly rates We hope the majority of our customers will come on board with one variety of TSP or anothe
22. akes Colonel Leatherbury from down the road sometimes known as Creekwalker to his nefarious friends to replenish or return the favor some other way for the firewood he swiped from the woodshed this winter when I wasn t looking One day present him down at Country Stuffins over a worn out waffle and a bottle of Bud a complete reckoning That ll let him know who he s messing with ANCASH presents a monthly cash budget beginning with a balance adding receipts subtracting disbursements and leaving an ending balance to begin the next month Neat Now all I need is a beginning balance AUTO contains several file retrieve macros so that files in subdirectories can be brought up efficiently Forexample I might have a directory named DOGABS within which are individual absence records for Goofy Tarnation and Zeke I d hit A for macro A and Lotus would let me select which dog I wanted to pick on Or another directory called BROABU wherein files containing ideas for written abuses of my three brothers Jack Bob and Bill might be stored Id hit B and there d be three files full of abusive remarks ready for instant inspiration AWARDA amp AWARDB list employ ees names and hire dates and calculates the number of years each employee has been with the company with AWARDB adding birth dates and calculating ages No use to me I don t want to know how long I ve been trying to squeeze a livi
23. an 256 comes with Ansel software too Ansel is a sophisticated image manipulator that could re size the resulting computer image and also touch up contrast and jagged lines The resulting TIF and PCX files could be brought into Word Perfect 5 1 directly no need for a separate desktop publishing package Finally Tom and Kay needed some thing to print these letters MarketWare is an Okidata reseller We suggested an OkiLaser 400 less than 800 buys 300 dpsquality at 4 pages per minute Remember If you are not on our mailing list you may notcontinue to receive MarketWire Callus to avoid missing future issues 16 May 1991 Fax 574 4293 Continued from page 7 one vendor s DOS on another vendor s machine but be careful You may get some undesirable results Q I tried to print from Lotus 1 2 3 toa laser printer on the network and nothing comes out of the printer until I exit the program A Novell uses a CAPTURE command to re route data originally intended for your printer port s to a network printer located somewhere on your network Within that command you can set the port to capture the server and queue to capture to whether or not you want a form feed or an ID banner and some other odds and ends One very important parameter is time out which instructs Novell how long to wait in seconds after the last transmission of data before it closes the print job and begins to print Withou
24. arketWare at 9 00 in the morning Immediately place a call to other card in DP Tek tech the machine support to because The computer burped as it tried find outif there WERE they ve ever es to load the printer driver and B el cards in the promptly fell into a deep coma this kind of machine PPE problem ae necessitating a cold reboot needa the video you hit that and SCSI little bumpin controller the road For some reason we don t Still I fooled around with the CONFIG SYS concentrating on the QEMM386 memory manager settings and exclude switches No luck Same burp Infuriating I changed paths and sets in the AUTOEXEC I put pause s in my PS BAT file the one that ran the PS600 s memory resident software so that I could watch everything that happened nothing unusual I ran Manifest to see what changes were taking place in the use of expanded and extended memory No conflicts evident So Nothing s wrong but the damned card won t work Printer No problem if I print directly from LPT to the HP Laserjet at 300X300 At9 00 A M have to Sunday I reformat go to bed and ii and repai My rule of thumb is that when the visions of the blood is flowing so thickly that you warped drives ey gt and melted gt F hortin methin m ne isk shorting so ethi g out it s time cen with to take a clotting break cards dift DOS3 3 through or4 01 my and then agitated wrestle with memory hogg
25. art and end date of separate tasks and presents a graphic representation of the schedule RAISESA calculates the effect of raises for hourly employees and RAISESB calculates the effects of raises for salaried The calculated effect of a raise for Colonel Leatherbury showed up in ABSENCEA under coon hunt ing SALES presents monthly sales by product TRAVELA prints a blank expense account form and TRAVELB fills it Continued on page 8 May 1991 574 4222 MarketWare Computer Systems Coach s Corner May 1991 By BOB IVERS Here are some of the questions I was asked since the last newsletter Remem ber if you have a question or have solved a strange problem on your computer write me and perhaps we ll include your problem in the next issue Q When I turn on my machine I geta message Bad or missing COMMAND COM A DOS needs three files in order to boot itself Two files usually named IO SYS and MSDOS SYS are hidden and must be located at a specific location on the drive The third file COMMAND COM is anormal DOS file that must reside in the root directory of drive C The problem with COMMAND COM unlike the others is that it can be moved renamed deleted or replaced since it appears much like a normal DOS file All three of these files are related With different versions of DOS you get different versions of all three files You cannot mix different versions of these files and have them wor
26. ated ona floppy boot disk improve virus protection and enforce DOS version standards network wide The problem is not all DOS versions are the same DOS V3 30 originally written by Microsoft may have been slightly altered by the computer vendor Compaq DOS V4 01 is different than IBM s but they re both the same version If you boot your machine using Compaq DOS then log into the network which sets a COMSPEC setting to an Everex version of DOS on drive F your machine will halt with INVALID COMMAND COM SYSTEM HALTED after you exit your next program The fixes to this problem are 1 Don t set a COMSPEC setting when logging into the network or 2 Seta COMSPEC setting based not on the DOS version but on the node address of the system or 3 While we don t recommend this it is possible to use Continued on page 17 Coach s Corner MarketWire MarketWare Computer Systems in There should be a TRAVPAD but Frank forgot YRTODATE performs year to date comparisons for a given number of months That s 40 worksheets but Frank didn t stop there He s got 21 more worksheets stuffed onto this disk that he calls Tips Hints and Helps worksheets These demonstrate how to use a variety of functions and com mands available in Lotus 1 2 3 My favorite was RANDOM demonstrating how to produce random numbers within a specified range You have no idea how much this helped on the tax returns Workin
27. authorized dealer for Great Plains Software the makers of the Great Plains Accounting system We evaluated a number of top quality accounting systems besides Great Plains Macola MAS 90 Realworld Solomon Platinum etc All of the above are fine accounting systems so the choice was difficult Great Plains won us over on four counts features customer support product delivery structure and com pany stability Feature wise while no package is always the best for all customers Great Plains offers a very strong set of features especially with version 6 Great Plains customer support is without question the best of any of the majors the authors of In Search of Excellence recently used Great Plains as a customer support case study Great Plains product delivery struc ture is ideal resellers like MarketWare sell the software and the hardware platform it runs on while Qualified Installers QIs install and support the product QIs are typically CPA firms they know accounting in general and Great Plains specifically QIs can give you advice on structuring your chart of accounts for example something MarketWare would be afraid to touch This clear cut differentiation between reseller and accounting expert appears to us to be the ideal way to deliver an accounting package Finally while other accounting system developers are laying off people or even filing for bankruptcy Great Plains is still showing healthy grow
28. cause my CRT screen is 3 1 2 feet from my face when I m working and my eyes have seemed to develop a 3 1 2 foot focus and hardened into it like a pair of fried eggs Then too the lighting in my home office leaves much to be desired and wielding a flashlight while manipulating cards and jumpers is a vile neurotic delusionary hope springing from some netherworld of cheap expectations that I probably developed during the sixties With no functional vision then installing cards for mice modems tape drives scanners and printers the PS600 600dpi PostScript card becomes a matter of how long you can stand the pin pricks and outright lacerations from the clipped off soldering sites on the backs of the cards versus the time it takes to find the right slot and cram the card into it My rule of thumb is that when the blood is flowing so thickly that you risk shorting something out it s time to take a clotting break Of course you have to put the cards in one at a time so that you can spot the one causing the trouble as it goes in My problems with the CUI machine began before any cards were put in I tried to boot and the machine couldn t find those expensive SCSI drives I knew Bob had formatted the drives and set up the CMOS for them because I d seen the drives working at the office before I took the machine home That left two probable possibilities the battery had come unplugged and the CMOS setup had died or a
29. d end in DOC WordPerfect in WP etc Then you tell TextWare to index those files under a cardfile named EWEW with individual files or pages within the files as separate cards TextWare will work for a few minutes to a couple of hours depending on how big the eventual cardfile is going to be That s it Thereafter any user can run TextWare load the EWEW cardfile and go exploring Every word in those files has been indexed so the user might find that the words eat and pizza would have 198 and 33 cards containing them while only 7 cards contained both You might find that George has 300 cards referring to him while Marsha has 728 but only one card from Elain s secret WordPerfect directory mentions both Marsha and George in close proximity If 300 cards from a variety of authors mentioned George and Marsha any reasonable office manager would be led to conclude that this pair was an item You can establish the combined vocabulary of your staff instantly Since TextWare indexes every word then tells you how many distinct words are included in how many cards in the current cardfile the WEWE cardfile would show the combined vocabulary as soon as it is loaded To give you some milestones to shoot for my fiction vocabulary runs at 12 000 words while my technical vocabulary approaches 30 000 words My fictional love scene vocabulary runs just 18 words most of them exclamations Maybe this is why non
30. desktop publishing and archival subsystems E mail Fax mail Voice mail etc Spread sheets interfacing with databases Network connectivity with minis and mainframes Local and Wide Area Networks Whether the office automation expert was arecycled programmer time studies engineer or office secretary the messages eventualty merged into a single unified theme which I will dub the Allendorf Jaded OA Axiom In an age of cheap computer resources it is insane to make people write things on paper The more times a given piece of information is re written or re typed the more insane the practice becomes So if OA is dead how come the AJOAA still rings true Because managers still have a bottom line and human beings are still the costliest part of any business If you can eliminate a job or get the business goal met with less human effort you ll stay in business If not you ll lose out the guy who has Therefore as long as your human costs remain high your OA goals remain the same Q Get the job done with the least amount of redundant human effort waste paper and cabling Q Provide a consistent user interface so that training becomes simplified QO Allow as much application integration as possible so that May 1991 Fax 574 4293 information can be transferred from one application to another easily and efficiently Now before everyone grabs a mouse and Windows 3 0 a fax server and
31. e a peek and even then if I m trying to discover whether I ve already covered a minor point somewhere in what will eventually be a megabyte of text before a book is finished I have to either reread every chapter or use a text string finder like Zy Index which will show me every file that contains a phrase like anaerobic metabolism or fast twitch high oxidative Extrapolate my stupidity farther say with 10 to 40 megabytes of text that I ve never read perhagszat a megabyte or May 1991 Fax 574 4293 two per file and you ve got the kind of problem Id face if I had say a law library on disk or the Bible or Novell s manuals or MarketWare s price list or MarketWare s things that go wrong and what to do about them database Any or all of these on a network server Even ZyIndex would encounter problems then Not enough versatility Enter TextWare a text indexing and retrieval system by TextWare Inc Remember the index cards you used to assemble when you were writing term papers or theses in college Little three by fives that had a quoted paragraph or a single concept written down and later put in order as you began writing TextWare assembles an online database by way of cardfiles built of conveniently sized pieces of text that are indexed word for word gathered together under a document title and eventually grouped under a data base name that constitutes the cardfi
32. e of my fiction has been published yet Text retrieval in TextWare is instanta neous on my 386 33 My technical cardfile is indexed by file which represent individual articles I ve written so a search will bring up a hit list of 70 characters each the title and part of the first line of the articles that MarketWire MarketWare Computer Systems contain the search words or phases I can select one of these cards and the entire article is brought up with the search words highlighted TextWare supports Boolean search criteria like and or andnot and whozat That last function allows you to look up who the hell this Boule guy was and why his name is cluttering up our language Meanwhile one or more images can be tagged and associated with individual cards within acardfile For example information concerning a piece of real estate for sale can be associated with a group of pictures of that property Cards can be added to or deleted from cardfiles Cardfiles can be merged TextWare usually searches across all Documents in a cardfile But you can limit your searches to one or several Documents within a Cardfile by selecting from a list of documents contained in that cardfile For example a legal case history cardfile might be made of documents concerning Taxes Wills Divorce and Rum Running among other exotica and you might simply be interested in dodging taxes as opposed to federal age
33. ears to be a warm up issue once the printer is warm the toner sticks Recommended especially when you consider the OkiLaser s sub 2 200 price Clone Fever By JACK IVERS One of MarketWare s LAN customers is in the throes of picking a corporate PC standard For yaars this company had largely standardized on Compaq Dozens of local resellers MarketWare included tried to convince them that they were paying too much for the Compaq name About nine months ago they caught Clone Fever and reversed directions entirely They realized they could get at least two low end clones for the price of one Compaq system They bought heavily 5 MarketWare Computer Systems adozen or more MMG 386DX systems They ran into one slight problem the MMG machines didn t quite work Whatever clone motherboard manufac turer MMG happened to be using at that point in time they ve probably been through three different motherboards since hadn t done their homework on application compatibility The motherboard builder probably didn t have an extensive compatibility lab like Everex does and hadn t tested the nastier less common applications As aresult the company s mainframe terminal emulation software didn t quite work right At the same time the end users revolted They didn t like the cheap look and feel of the clones One purchase requisition specifically stated We don t want a clone system
34. ew technology soothes the ulcer brought on by the last 72 straight hours of anguish and sleeplessness common to the upgrade path Pd like to blame my most recent near heart attack on Bob but I can t All he did was install the twin SCSI 200Mb drives I did the card stuffing peripheral setups and software transfers The new box is a CUI 386 33 with RAM and VIDRAM caching 8 megs of RAM in a tower configuration with a512K VGA video card Running DR DOS 5 The machine came with excellent references from a networking specialist friend on the west coast but still I m the guinea pig for a possible new line for MarketWare I3 MarketWare Computer Systems The reason for DR DOS is that I wanted two big drive partitions 200 Mb each instead of eleven little ones and I didn t want to clog memory and alter COMMAND COM with some unscru pulous piece of disk management software that may or may not get along with the SCSI drives or the motherboard The problem with DR DOS is that it s another variable to amp pnsider when things go wrong If you remember MSDOS 4 0 you know vividly the gnashing of teeth that accompanies a buggy infuriatingly stupid operating system In this case DR DOS per formed flawlessly but there was no way to know that it was not the cause of the problems as they occurred DR DOS loomed as an ugly black cloud as I bloodied my hands pushing and pulling cards in and out of the CUI tower Righ
35. financial report writer in the General Ledger module as well as customizable menus and macro capabili ties in all modules NetWorth is now shipping a new Smart 10BASE T Module for their Series 4000 10BASE T hubs The new module provides 12 10BASE T ports and network management capabilities ina single module saving both dollars and chassis slots See below for more feedback on the Series 4000 R Fax 574 4293 By JACK IVERS Everex s Tempo LX 386SX notebook system is a neat machine We ve had a demo unit for the last 60 days and it hasn t spent much time here at the office The Tempo LX received rave reviews in several recent magazine reviews including PC Computing and we agree The backlit LCD screen is a crisp black black on white white They keyboard has the same clean click and feel as Everex s new STEP and Tempo keyboards We haven t had the nerve to try PC Computing s torture test they dropped the LX off a table onto the floor and it survived but we believe it Wereceived our first Everex STEP Tower configuration recently a486 25 destined for the desk of Tommy Sedler at Home City Ice Co The Tower chassis is the best we ve seen with excellent component quality through out a sturdy metal handle for moving the system and a non tip base The Tower configuration includes a 250W power supply with four front access half height drive bays and two full height internal drive bays If you
36. g alone I kept coming up with numbers like 4444 or 2468 or subversively 1357 With RANDOM operating I got numbers like 3165 much more impressive I thought of using ZEROOUT but I m afraid that wouldn t have sold well at the IRS The manual for Worksheets On A Disk is Well written clear and instructive beyond the call of duty It is easy to see that Frank is a good teacher and that he knows his stuff W O A D requires an IBM compatible with at least 256K DOS 2 0 or higher and Lotus 1 2 3 2 0 or higher List price is 59 95 but we can get it for you for 24 95 Frank is doing some test marketing in Cincinnati Also available are three 1 2 3 Seminars On A Disk for 1 2 3 fundamentals macros and data base management as well as disks of 100 macros and templates for 1 2 3 or 280 macros for WordPerfect One for 59 95 two for 99 95 three for 129 95 Frank s gota little marketing savvy too If you use Lotus 1 2 3 you can t miss on this offer Recommended Happiness Is Getting It Right MarketWire 574 4222 The First Time By TOM IVERS Red Adair when asked recently about his two Mercedes and big Cigarette boat said If you think hiring an expert is expensive just wait till you hire an amateur While no one at MarketWare drives a Mercedes and the Hoats are all Hobie Cats we still think Mr Adair s thought is worth exploring in the context of computers and networking Each mo
37. ggling wires resetting jumpers reset ting the tape drive software With each change you have to test n the results go through the whole restore process again As dawn crept across the horses paddocks and the dogs began to bark at the trash hauler I moved the Mr Coffee to the upstairs office and began considering some form of urinal in fact I had removed the storm window and calculated trajectories before I was shocked into sanity by a sudden vision of Edie s clouded countenance rising out of the fog I went to work and by the end of the day I found myself shaking like a housefly in the preliminary spasms of a RAID attack and went back at the tape drive exhausting all the possibili ties I could think of by about 11 P M I watched the news and went to bed puzzling over what could be wrong At 3 00 A M Ihad the answer RAM cache Sometimes something quirky goes on with RAM cache and periph eral devices The CUT s was easy to disable in CMOS setup I shut it off and the Maynard drive performed flawlessly even though the speed of May 1991 Fax 574 4293 the machine was compromised dramati cally I went back to bed at 9 00 A M Saturday morning all my software loaded the Maynard card pulled and the RAM cache reenabled Next the PS600 card Having slept all day Saturday I got up ate supper and went back to work on my computer reopening half healed cuts as I blindly wrestled the PS600
38. ghtly more for the 486 20 SX So the 486 20 SX machines offer a perfor mance level between 386 33 and 486 25 systems while setting a new standard for price performance especially for applications that don t need the 1486 s built in coprocessor Another brand new Everex system is the STEP 386 20SX now shipping While benchmarks aren t yet available I d have to guess that the new STEP system will be one of the fastest 386SX systems in production it has a 64Kb cache and uses Everex s AMMA memory management scheme the same scheme that puts STEP 386 and 486 systems well ahead of most competitors Like other new generation Everex systems the STEP 386 20SX allows you to mix and match SIMM modules to achieve virtually any desired RAM capacity up to 16Mb total The new generation motherboard In Other News By JACK IVERS Novell has revamped their entire product offering NetWare 2 2 replaces ELS I ELS II Advanced and SFT NetWare while NetWare 3 11 replaces NetWare 386 Both products are now stratified by number of concurrent users rather than by features NetWare 2 2 comes in 5 10 50 and 100 user versions NetWare 3 11 comes in 20 100 and 250 user versions NetWare 2 2 now includes all of the features of Advanced and SFT NetWare including SCSI drive support and disk mirroring May 1991 The new pricing puts the NetWare 2 2 50 user product at the same price as the NetWare 3 11 20 user product for net
39. her hand types something near 200 words per minute But his 60 error rate slows him somewhat It is a sheer stroke of luck then that Novell has provided us with their Technical Manual indexed in TextWare While we slowly gather our own service manual Novell s is right at Unfortunately Bob is no James Michener A para graph to him is Hawaii and South Pacific rolled into one Jack on the other hand types something near 200 words per minute But his 60 error rate slows him somewhat our fingertips and once you describe your problem we can troubleshoot over the phone that is if it s a Novell problem Eventually we intend to skip the middle man and make this database available to you online Right now TextWare itself is available to you Suppose you have hundreds of documents floating around the system in Word directories or WordPerfect directories or even in some old dog s WordStar directory You want to assemble the combined knowledge of all your literate brethren in one great resource database so that this informa tion is available in context instantly to anyone on the system Simple The first step is to assemble all the documents in a directory named say EWEW Everything We Ever I MarketWare Computer Systems Wrote As these documents come in to the directory you want the files named with an extension that identifies the word processor used to create them Word documents woul
40. ht OQ Quantum Prodrive 80 84Mb 19ms 3 5 full height O Seagate 1102A 89Mb 19ms 3 5 full height O Seagate 1144A 124Mb 19ms 3 5 full height Q Maxtor LXT200A 201Mb 15ms 3 5 full height Today s IDE drives are faster smaller and use less power More importantly they offer the increased capacity often 80Mb to 200Mb that today s standalone user needs Recommended for workstation use We don t recom May 1991 574 4222 mend them for Novell server use SCST s a much better solution We just installed an OkiLaser 840 with second drive mechanism as our production PostScript laser printer We re quite pleased The type on the OkiLaser is slightly more fine less bold than that of the Everex LaserScript that the OkiLaser replaced overall I like the fine OkiLaser output a little better As far as PostScript performance goes the two printers are pretty close with the edge going to the Everex with its RISC processor the OkiLaser s 8ppm engine more than makes up the difference however once the initial PostScript processing is completed The dual bins At the same time the end users revolted They didn t like the cheap look and feel of the clones One purchase requisition specifically stated We don t want a clone system on the OkiLaser are a real plus The only problem we ve had with OkiLasers in the field toner flaking on certain heavy letterhead stocks app
41. ing by 4 01 or COMMAND COM alterations in order to build big drive partitions or divide my drives up into a dozen or more small partitions no fun any of it I checked that my restoration of my May 1991 dreams At 6 00 P M I m up for breakfast the evening news and 60 Minutes I avoid the office and that infernal machine thoughts of which make me nauseous and start on Hackers a paperback my father sent to me in order that I learn about the move 15 entirely understand you have to re install the software even if you re on the same drive with the same directo ries same settings and same memory manager GAAA YOU DIRTY S H s Unfortunately this kind of thing happens all the time Undocumented quirks in software and hardware that oftentimes tech support knows nothing about until a customer has pulled out most of his hair before bumbling upon an engineer s stupid mistake This is called Distributed R amp D Why go through all that testing when the customers will do it for you The very biggest and the best companies in software and hardware liberally use Distributed R amp D DOS 4 0 is a good example dBASEIV 1 0 Virtually every piece of software from IBM Clone hardware Windows CD ROMs and their software Hard drives I m convinced that at least a billion dollars of R amp D has been performed for these companies by their customers within the past five years I ve delivered my share
42. ite the write protect tab on the top of the diskette Low density diskettes have no extra holes If you format a low density disk at high density it will probably work fine until you try it in a machine which properly checks for the hole in the diskette Expecting the disk to be low density you get a read or write failure because the diskette was formatted at high density I saw areal money saving advertise ment in a computer rag last week that touted a device that actually chops holes into your 720KB diskettes to make them Exactly the same as 1 44MB diskettes Maybe I could start a service bureau and get rich convert ing Q I get a hard disk failure error when Iturn my machine on Could I have done some damage when I bumped my machine while it was sitting on its side Yes it fell over while it was turned on butit was on the ground so it didn t fall very far Yes another true story Most hard drives automatically park their read write heads to a safe spot on the drive where a sudden jolt won t make the heads touch any part of the data areas Unfortunately most drives only park their heads when you turn the machine off Q I use the Novell Menu system to build user menus for all ten of our users Rather than make a menu for each person I vemade one menu that all of us use Once we started using the menu DOS wouldn tlet me change it I get a File in Use error even though nobody has
43. k reliably together Because COMMAND COM is so easily overwritten by another version of itself by just copying all files from drive A or by accidently deleting all files in the root directory we get frequent calls on how to solve this problem We always set up drive C witha C DOS directory which contains a the version of DOS we used to format the hard drive In that directory resides a copy of COMMAND COM Simply copy that file to C COPY C DOS COMMAND COM C and reboot If that doesn t work try booting from the system diskette that came with your computer if there is no physical problem with your drive you should be able to change to drive C and copy COMMAND COM from the diskette Q After I Login to the network my machine will hang after Iexita program and give me the message Invalid COMMAND COM Machine Halted A This problem is similar to the previous one In this case all worked fine until the user logged into the network Novell networks have the ability to determine which version of DOS such as V3 30 or V4 00 a PC has booted up with Many times in an effort to standardize the version of DOS for all users on the network a COMSPEC setting is used to identify a new common location of COMMAND COM Then each time DOS requires something within the program COMMAND COM it looks in the new location for COMMAND COM rather than the old This technique will speed up a computer whose COMMAND COM is loc
44. larm thresholds relating to traffic volumes link failures even disk space shortages In the event of an alarm EtherManager can display warning messages or even issue a page by dialing the network administrator s pager using a server attached modem O EtherManager can manage all attached Novell LANs includ ing non 1OBASE T LANs such as the StarLAN network in financial aid O EtherManager maintains a complete PC configuration inventory on every managed network Information tracked includes processor base memory extended expanded memory LAN driver and shell version and configuration information attached hard drives and I O ports etc The network administrator can easily produce an inventory of all networked PCs and their configurations All considered a LAN administrator s dream We ve got about 60 Everex 1OBASE T network cards stacked up against one wall of our build up area in preparation for a large installation So far so good the cards work as advertised With recent price reductions we re selling more and more Everex cards with 10BASE T networks Need a workhorse impact printer As MarketWare tackles more and more downsizing projects where mini and Continued on page 5 On The Bench Continued from page 3 mainframe users are porting applica MarketWire MarketWare Computer Systems 574 4222 Fax 574 4293 HomeFront News at MarketWare MarketWare is now an
45. le TextWare with Images goes a step farther and allows you to index scanned images as well as scanned text OCR d to ASCII Just as paragraphs add up to chapters and chapters eventually become a book so do cards glue together to become documents which in turn become a cardfile in TextWare Actually the reverse is true TextWare takes huge pieces of text and indexes them down to hundreds perhaps thousands of individual bite size cards and remembers each card word for word so that you can find any single word or any string instantly Let s assume for a brief moment that Bob was actually functionally literate that is he could sit down and write a complete coherent paragraph without becoming dizzy or falling into acoma What a boon to MarketWare and to you our customers Every time he ran into a problem out in the field and solved it he seldom fails at these plebeian blue collar tasks he could tap in a paragraph describing the event Later when you callin witha similar problem we could have the solution at May 1991 574 4222 our fingertips and not have to drag Bob away from the cranky whining throw momma from the train he s momma impressions he regales us with on an incessant basis He does an excellent Elmer Fudd too Next time he s at your site plead for a performance Unfortunately Bob is no James Michener A paragraph to him is Hawaii and South Pacific rolled into one Jack on the ot
46. more to go with 10BASE T Ethernet than with standard thin coax Ethernet Even at this price 1OBASE T Ethernet was attractive simplified cabling and a star topology can save lots of dollars over time Today the 1OBASE T Ethernet market is amuch different much improved place at least for you and I I wouldn t want to be a 10BASE T manufacturer at the moment The market is evolving rapidly in two separate directions low end and high end On the low end prices are falling rapidly both for network cards and for hubs Today you d pay only 2 400 more for 1 OBASE T Ethernet ona typical 15 node network At this price itisn t difficult to justify LOB ASE T versus coax Ethernet At the high end dozens of vendors are offering chassis based 1 OBASE T wiring centers with network manage ment capabilities Chassis based wiring centers have multiple card slots much like the expansion slots in your PC Each slot can take a variety of modules For example NetWorth s Series 4000 has the following modules available or planned Q 12 port OBASE T Ethernet module with 12 RJ45 jacks OQ 12 port OBASE T Smart May 1991 Ethernet module with 12 RJ45 jacks as well as network management O Network management module Q Fiber hub module Other vendors such as Synoptics Chipcom and Cabletron offer an even wider variety of plug in modules albeit at a much higher cost The multi slot architecture provides a nice degree of
47. ng out of this computer nor do I want to know how old Edie is Some things are better left in obscurity BANKREC reconciles a bank statement to a checkbook balance There Fax 574 4293 should bea BANKRECB to account for float BONUSA and BONUSB calculate employee bonuses based on a percent of annual earnings with a minimum and maximum bonus BONUSB calculating sales rep bonuses based on percentages of yearly sales for each rep Creekwalker s bonus will be calculated in tons of horse manure hauled out to the pastures and spread His AGINREC willbe considered at the end of the year He might end up owing manure can t tell yet CALENDRA and CALENDRB display a calender of events with CALENDRB offering simplified date entry and displaying the day of the week for each event Very important for a writer because there are some days it s absolutely necessary to arise shower and shave before noon Good to know ahead of time especially if you re not really sure what day it is or what year for that matter CARLOAN calculates monthly pay ments for car loans Discouraging Notrecommended CHECKS sums check amounts by expense categories including food housing auto repairs fun health etc I guess 44 magnum shells go under fun since any food they hit would have to be peeled off nearby trees and shaken out of bushes COUNT calculates the number of employees with various fringe benefits and compute
48. nth we lose a dozen or so sales some of them big ones to companies which bid under us Each month too we get called out to an equal number of sites to repair or replace competitor s systems which have failed to deliver what was originally promised or expected These are invariably un happy experiences for both ourselves and the client because when inad equate equipment is installed by folks with limited expertise solutions to the resulting problems are expensive The client greets us with a snarlingly healthy disrespect for computer resellers No fun The purchasing agent at most compa nies has two principal goals in mind as he buys computers and network installations a complete solution and a good price We understand that We have precisely the same goals in mind when we make our own purchases But the perspective we bring to the table may be more complex than that of some potential clients when it comes to our area of expertise Here s the way we think amateur There is no question that price is a primary consideration in the purchase of computing equipment In fact we tend to feel that buying Compaq or IBM machines at a premium price and locking yourself into proprietary 8 If you think hiring an expert is expensive just wait till you hire an Fax 574 4293 technology where peripherals and upgrades are equally expensive is bad economics That s why we sell Everex Powerful reliable
49. nts or alimony So you select the Taxes document then search for dodge You can edit individual cards from within TextWare For example ina document called Lovelife you might want to change all references to Suzi over to Mildred before you take your portable computer home Mildred and the kids will be thrilled and Suzi will never know the difference You can tell TextWare to find partial words as in lt find boo gt TextWare will find Boolean bootable and these boots are made for walkin on the same instantaneous pass If you say lt index gt to TextWare the software will list every word in the cardfile alphabetically That way you can see if Suzi turns up unexpectedly in say the Expenses document TextWare does proximity searches You can see if Suzi shows up MarketWire 574 4222 anywhere within ten words of Comdex or San Diego Seminar for example That ll help TextWare allows you to relate cards to one another within the cardfile In other words one card can be linked to dozens of others containing further references in the same subject area This takes some time to set up but can be very useful when a user is looking for a solution to a technical problem When you find the information you want you can print an individual card or an entire document from within TextWare You can also print every card on the hit list or just mark a few cards to print from the hit lis
50. processing It supports three interfaces parallel serial and AppleTalk all hot simultaneously so that Mac and PC users can share the printer without switching the front panel In addition to PostScript the LX can emulate an HP Series II and provides automatic emulation sensing if you talk HP to it it switches into HP emulation and vice versa for PostScript The LX is based around the same 6ppm TEC engine used by Epson Microtek and many others so toner MarketWire 574 4222 and drum consumables are readily available All in all a good buy the only printer that comes close in price is NEC s SilentWriter Model 90 and the LaserScript LX has more features Everex s lineup of graphics cards is growing stronger by the minute In the last issue of MarketWire we intro duced Everex s high end Viewpoint VRAM and DRAM cards Now Everex has introduced new low end and mid rangecards The Viewpoint Standard Everex s low end offering is a 16 bit 256K card with 800x600 capabilities Price under 75 Next up is the Viewpoint NI available in 256K and 512K models Unlike most other mid range cards the NI supports 1024x768 non interlaced resolution hence the NI name The 512K card sells for under 165 On the Bench 5 they dropped the LX off a table onto the floor and it survived Continued from page 1 10th The new version includes hundreds of new features including a super powerful
51. r NOTICE If you renoton our mailing list and want to continue to receive the MarketWire newsletter callus We ll be happy to send you future editions free of charge May 1991 Fax 574 4293 tions to LANs we need heavy duty reliable printers In a recent downsizing installation we tried Output Technol ogy Corporation s 850XL and were quite pleased with the results The 850XL is a tri matrix printer it uses three printheads and prints three lines at once With a draft throughput of 850cps the 850XL is significantly faster than Okidata s 393 Plus another favorite The 850XL is built tough with a degree of sturdiness you d normally see only on minicomputer printers OTC also offers even faster line printers with rated speeds of 4001pm and 600lpm and a 1 6ppm laser printer that prints on standard fanfold com puter paper Low end hard drives are undergoing a revolution Not long ago the standard standalone PC configuration include a Seagate ST25 1 40Mb MFM hard drive a half height 5 25 form factor drive with a 28ms average seek time The next step up was to the Seagate ST4096 afull height 5 25 drive It was difficult to find a drive above 80Mb but less than 160Mb Today we re shipping almost exclu sively 3 5 form factor IDE drives in our standalone machines Here are some drives we have used and like O Seagate 157A 44Mb 28ms 3 5 full height O Maxtor7080A 81Mb 17ms 3 5 half heig
52. s the percent age participation Let s see I ve got one into firewood three on automobile tire watering make that two Tarnation operates differently than the other two I m on early retirement and Edie gets all the food she can cook CUSTMERA and CUSTMERB store and print customer information with CUSTMERB laying out the information horizontally DISBURSE presents a monthly cash budget and calculates total May 1991 Fax 574 4293 disbursements by the date you plan to pay them FIND finds information in a large database of part numbers GRADING tracks the number of problems or questions students missed on tests INVOICE calculates and prints an invoice INVENTORY values an inventory LABEL3 prints three different size mailing labels LIFEINS calculates employees life insurance amounts and monthly premiums LIST prints mailing labels from an address book LOANA and LOANB present a monthly loan payment schedule with LOANB indicating those with payments due on the last day of every month MORTGAGEA and MORTGAGEB calculate monthly mortgage payments with MORTGAGEB calculating under a variety of possibilities PAYABLE tracks invoices to be paid PHONESA and PHONESSB quickly find a telephone number in a directory but PHONEB uses macros to sort names alphabetically and to print PRICING calculates a retail price using the wholesale cost and a markup percent PROJECT displays the st
53. t TextWare remembers the last ten search criteria you ve used and allows you to go back through the stack to change or combine any of them into a new search command The program is very liberal with wildcard searches allowing you to stick an or a at the begin ning end or in the middle of a word Ask anyone from a phone system huckster to a copier salesman and they d have an OA solution too Office Automation By BILLALLENDORF Now there s a Pick of the Crypt buzz word for you Remember back in the early Eighties Everyone was touting Office Automation solutions Every business systems analyst who was tired of batch COBOL was putting Office Automation Specialist in their resume hoping to get a new job offering an office with a window view instead of a cubicle I had a boss for a short time that was less than a year out of the typing pool who called herself an Office Automation Specialist in fact I believe she was one of the few real ones I ve met Products Ask IBM and they d say PROFS period Ask 12 Fax 574 4293 anyone from a phone system huckster to a copier salesman and they d have an OA solution too Okay OA is a dead meaningless term Pack it away with Groovy and let s get down to business Well not exactly OA is still alive and kicking but it s fragmented into its component parts We now talk about word processing integrating with
54. t here I d better let you know that you re going to hear shortly about a lot of midnight oil being burnt during this project If you d talk to my wife you d find another nasty aspect of this kind of project Tom becomes unapproach able during these marathon sessions There is a very good explanation for this behavior my conscious RAM is just as volatile as that in the com puter turn it off and all is lost That is all the variables I m juggling all the switches jumpers and software configurations I m changing as I troubleshoot have to be kept in active RAM In order to know where I m going I have to know where I ve been For example of three possible settings on a card one is going to be right Then three possible settings in software one is going to be right Then three possible hardware devices causing interference in the project at hand That gives 3 X 3 X 3 or 27 possible out comes only one of which is right I have to keep all 27 possibilities in mind as I attack the problem A telephone call asummons to lunch or a dog s insistent bark scatters organic RAM just as passing a magnet over the SIMMs in my computer will disrupt this MarketWire MarketWare Computer Systems WordPerfect file Overnight forays into the guts of my machine are not then a form of masochistic martyrdom they re necessary The reason for bloodied hands is quite simple Iam functionally blind at one foot be
55. t this parameter some programs like Lotus 1 2 3 won t close the print job on their own Consequently the job gets to the queue but never prints because it never gets closed Your printout won t show up until you exit Lotus which closes the print job Always use the time out TI parameter in the capture command We normally set the seconds to 5 but that will change from place to place Suppose someone is using an old slow as a dog XT cranking out something to the printer Also suppose that during its printing it has to calculate something on the fly to include on the report So it prints waits prints waits etc If your time out was set for less than the waits the Novell print job will close then open then close etc By default Novell jobs are printed in order of first in first out If by chance your boss sends a printout to the same printer during this print job your boss s printout will get intermingled on the same pages of the XT s job The result is an angry XT user who s already angry enough because their machine is too slow and an angry boss May 1991 574 4222 Q My 3 1 2 disk drive on my machine won treada freshly formatted diskette made onan IBM PS 2 Model 70 A Some IBM and clone machines will allow you to format a 720KB 3 1 2 diskette to high density High density 3 1 2 diskettes are identified by having a square hole directly oppos
56. th Hence our decision If your company is considering a new accounting system let us know We ll survey your needs to determine if Great Plains is a good fit if so we ll set up a demo for you to see the product MarketWire MarketWare is pleased to welcome Alan Monaghan to MarketWare s technical staff Alan should be getting his Novell Certified NetWare Engineer CNE rating around the time that you read this In addition to his consider able NetWare expertise Alan has extremely good general PC and commu nications knowledge MarketWare will begin offering MarketWare s NetWare System Manager course in May call us for dates This course is designed to offer content comparable to Novell s System Manager course with less of a Sell Red attitude For example the MarketWare course will cover products such as Saber Menu Printer Assist and XtreeNet that aren t Novell products yet are a key part of the NetWare operating environment The new classes will be held in MarketWare s newly equipped Education Center our seminar room with PCs on every desk at our Harrison Avenue offices MarketWare will also be offering a new format networking seminar on a monthly basis in the same facility The new MarketWare Networking Semi nar will be a single day all day affair with the morning session covering LAN basics components and consider ations and the afternoon covering downsizing connectivity and wide are
57. the menu displayed on their screens A If you just spent your very last 17 MarketWare Computer Systems dollar on your Novell operating system then I say go ahead and use the Novell Menu system Otherwise buy the Saber Menu system It will pay for itself twice each month When a user enters the Novell Menu system the menu file xxx MNU will remain open until that user exits the menu system entirely I mean go all the way back to the DOS prompt That means you cannot make any changes to the menu as long as someone is using it If multiple people are using the same menu file ALL users must exit to DOS before you make the simplest of changes to the menu Talk about shutting down an office Saber Menu provides a program called Matrix which allows you to maintain a multitude of individual user menus all on one screen You first develop a global menu that has everything in it After that if a user needs a particular menu choice you put a check mark in the column for that user Nothing could be simpler Best yet you are able to update all of the menus ANYTIME And all changes are instantly available to the user without chasing them out of the menu system Q I get the error OUT OF ENVI RONMENT SPACE every timeI LOGIN tothe network but nobody else does What s different about my machine A Network or not if you get OUT OF ENVIRONMENT SPACEerrors it means that the space reserved in memory for things like
58. tion with the RJ45 plug Since stranded twisted pair cable is somewhat difficult to find MarketWare typically provides pre assembled RJ45 cables All cables must be twisted pair untwisted cables such as standard flat satin telephone cords will not work properly with 10BASE T Ethernet Eight position unkeyed RJ45 connec tors are used to connect with hubs and network interface cards Note that the RJ45 connectors used with round twisted pair cable are different that those used with flat untwisted cable Note also that solid and stranded cable require different connectors We ve had good luck with AMP RJ45 crimp on connectors used in conjunction 18 with AMP s racheting crimp tool The tool is expensive but works much better than cheapies When wiring 10BASE T Ethernet it is important to remember that the four wires used must consist of two twisted pairs AT amp T color codes twisted pairs White Orange Orange White is one pair White Green Green White is another pair etc If twisted pairs aren t used even though the cable tests out fine using a voltmeter or cable tester 10BASE T Ethernet will notoperate reliably You ll see red jabber lights on your hubs users will get knocked off the network and overall network performance can even degrade See the following page for several useful diagrams and more details May 1991 Fax 574 4293 574 4222 MarketWare Computer Systems 10BASE
59. to the new The computer said You gotta be kidding Actually the tape software said DMA conflict No Problem I d faced this dilemma before There are three jumpers on the card two with three possible switch positions and one with two possible positions Trouble is you have to pull the card out every time you make a change Two hours and less than a pint of blood later the tape drive controller was playing beautifully I had a brief cry and began restoring Trouble First you need to understand how this tape drive works There is no up front directory on the tape You 14 Fax 574 4293 have to play through the entire tape selecting the directories you want to restore Takes about ten minutes Then the tape has to rewind and start all over again Takes about 5 minutes Then the tape restores about fifteen minutes with these new fast SCSI drives Half hour per tape seven tapes Not all the tapes were full because I refuse to do image backups and or allow a tape to be filled to be continued on another tape something always happens to make the two tapes unable to continue from one to the other Halfway through the restore of the first tape everything just stopped The screen froze and the tape drive started spinning as fast as it would go No keyboard commands would work I had to cold boot My my Possibili ties loose wires again IRQ conflicts unfortunate interrupt addresses That means ji
60. ts still out there they ve learned the humbleness of their trade They ve also kept the basic broad outlook with which OA began Just because the funky serial LAN buys a link between PC s today doesn t mean that it s the best way to go when you ll be trying to run DBASEIX over it tomorrow Conversely UNIX and X Windows and RISC stations may sound great but what happens when the managers find May 1991 574 4222 out they can t run their copies of 8 in 1 I would like to say that OA is alive and well I wish MarketWare had a dealer ship in OA Version 3 11 I would also like to ask for a general recall of all resumes I sent out calling myself an Office Automation Specialist It was a nice idea but the corporate world has grown up However just because Santa Claus doesn t slide down the chimney doesn t mean we reject the benefits of gift giving For those of you whose OA bubble I ve just popped with this article I m sorry I lied and it was acruel joke Santa does slide down the chimney Jaws IV Breaking in a New Machine By TOMIVERS You never think of the bad experiences of the past when you re considering upgrading to anew box All you can see is a hundred extra megs of storage four more drive bays a CPU that lays rubber alongside the old one faster memory faster drives a bigger roomier more accessible case I guess it s because saliva is a buffer and salivat ing over all the n
61. works of more than 10 but less than 20 users this makes NetWare 3 11 quite attractive The net effect here at MarketWare has been lots more NetWare 386 3 11 moving out the door Great Plains Software will ship version 6 of Great Plains Accounting on May Continued on page 2 In Other News includes an integrated IDE host adapter as well as two serial and one parallel ports increasing available expansion slots A new generation feature available in the 386 20SX is Everex s Advanced BIOS including the Programmable Drive Table PDT If you ve ever been frustrated when your PC s BIOS didn t support the head cylinder configuration of your new hard drive you II appreci ate PDT it allows you to program your own drive configuration Also pro vided in the new BIOS is boot time password protection no password no access to the system For the forgetful among us this feature is thankfully optional As a final feature the new BIOS provides a friendly menu driven SETUP process Everex has announced another 386 20SX system this time an upgrade to their popular Tempo LX laptop The Tempo LX is now available in three configurations 386 16SX with 20Mb hard drive 386 20SX with 40Mb Continued on page 2 Everex What s Inside On The Bench Network Corner HomeFront Clone Fever Worksheets Getting it Right Coach s Corner Windows 3 0 TextWare Office Automation Real Estate 10BASE T MarketWire
62. your PATH DOS SET variables etc 1s too small No big deal except that if you don t correct the problem things like your path or Windows TEMP file locations will disappear for no apparent reason To correct this problem simply put this command in yourCONFIG SYS file SHELL C COMMAND COM E 256 P Replace C COMMAND COM with the drive and directory where COMMAND COM resides Q With my machine turned off the lights flicker on for a split second go MarketWire MarketWare Computer Systems off and then go back on over and over again If I turn the switch on the fan comes on but that s it And it seems that there is a little bit of water coming from the back near where the power cordis A Does it smell like burning silicon too Why does this stuff always happen on my shift Seems that an accident happened above the ceiling which caused water to trickle down into this machine s power supply during the night I don t know if the machine was on all night or if it was turned on in the AM Anyway I believe that somehow the power supply shorted out and sent 574 4222 110 volts throughout the machine If anyone would care to see what IC chips designed for 5 volts or less do when subjected to 110 volts ve got a pile at our office Given time to dry out and if no electric ity was applied while they were wet circuit boards usually recover A Technical Tip Fax 574 4293 NOTICE
63. zation has to be brought up to date on the new models the pricing database has to be updated the techs have to learn the equipment the salesmen the features and values to the customer Red Adair May 1991 Fax 574 4293 Some of the companies we talked to had great prices but no supporting services they wanted us to explore the territory making our clients the guinea pigs our staff the goats Others had no spare parts because their lines were constantly in flux sell one box today another when that special purchase runs out all under the same brand name Nothing to talk about but price because no one knows what s going to be in the box until it arrives and no one knows whether it s going to keep flying until it s out there either making friends or enemies for the company Too big a chance to take The relationship with the supplier is another key ingredient in this decision making process At this point in time MarketWare is one of Everex biggest dealers Everex likes us they take care of us In an emergency we have parts in the air almost as soon as we get off the phone and they answer our calls Everex computers are American made so we re aware of any changes in configurations immediately and we re close in relative terms to the manufac turing plant we get the new stuff immediately All of the companies we contacted about low priced equipment were buying machines from

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