November 1998

The October meeting, featuring the build-a-thon build session, began promptly at 7:00 pm, as per the published agenda. I'm very pleased to report that we had another packed meeting room, between 40 and 50 attendees, including 2 or 3 new faces. There were 8 actual build participants, doing their thing under the expert guidance of the two Davids. All others were helpers and highly interested onlookers. Many had never paid much attention to the innards of a computer, and the experience was highly educational. Several members also expressed an interest in building their own systems in the near future, and indicated that they will be much better prepared after watching and listening to all the activity during the October meeting.

It was also most interesting to see the mix of hardware chosen by the various build participants: Intel Pentium II and AMD K6-2 based systems were both well represented, along with a good mix of the recommended Socket-7 and Slot-1 type motherboards (all with 100 MHz front-side bus speed), RAM, video, sound cards, hard drives, etc.

Of the 8 builds, 6 seemed to be successful insofar as booting OS/2 with the finished product without any apparent problems. One of the 6 had a mismatch between an ATX motherboard and an AT case, but was able to boot OK. He'll have to change the case. A 7th participant purchased his hardware and attempted to build a new system, without expert guidance, 2 or 3 months previously. His motherboard may have had some problems. And the 8th tried to transfer system files from an old system, and had some driver problems, which appeared to be easily correctable.

As promised during the September meeting, complete sets of hardware recommendations were posted on the phillyos2.org web site, along with many other items of advice and recommendations for the build. All this material will be left intact on the web site for an indefinite period for the benefit of our local members and all others who visit the web site.

By all accounts, the build-a-thon was a great success. Many thanks to our two gurus, David Gentzler and David Moskowitz for all their efforts.

The entire meeting was devoted to the build-a-thon project with the exception of a short intermission at mid-point for a break, informal chit-chat and 50/50 raffle. As usual, pretzels, chips and soft drink refreshments were available for everyone during the course of the evening.

The room was cleaned up, lights were turned off, and everybody finally left around 11:00pm, just in time to get soaked walking out to the parking area by an unexpected rainstorm.

We'll return to our normal meeting format in November. Please note that the November and December meetings will be held on the third Wednesday of these months to avoid holiday conflicts in the fourth weeks.

A refresh of Communicator for OS/2 is anticipated for release in the near future. Michael Kaply, Technical Lead for Netscape Communicator Development, admitted correcting an irritating bug in the Composer that wouldn't allow the user to sort messages by name. In addition to fixing this bug, Kaply says they have added back the Netscape 2.02 capability to sort groups of bookmarks. Both of these bug fixes will appear in the next refresh of Communicator for OS/2, hopefully soon.

IBM has decided on the official name for Aurora. It will be called OS/2 Warp Server for e-Business (aka Warp 5). Additional information may be found at www.software.ibm.com.

OS/2 users who signed up to test the beta of OS/2 Warp Server for e-Business have been busily installing the product. Their first impressions are excellent: the install program is far better than Warp 4 and makes NT's install painfully slow and error prone; PnP detects everything flawlessly; it comes with all the workstation stuff including games; a ton of multinational font support; is totally Unicode (Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Greek, etc.); operates with more than one processor; and it is very fast.

The beta is timed to stop working on December 18th. IBM plans to release Warp Server for e-Business during the first quarter of 1999.

Jeff Smith, Director for OS/2 Business line management Network Computing Software, visited Stockholm, Sweden, October 14th, and an article on this showed up in a highly regarded Swedish computer magazine - Computer Sweden - a few days later.

Here is the principal thrust of Smith's comments in Sweden:

• Java extends the lifetime of OS/2.

• OS/2 is alive. OS/2 is not to be discontinued. That's the message from IBM, when they try to refute rumors and calm down worried customers. OS/2 is actually lucrative.

IBM has made a preview release of Java 1.1.7 publicly available. You can download a copy from www.software.ibm.com. New benchmark figures are in and IBM's Preview release of Java 1.1.7 is reported to be as much as 71% faster than Java 1.1.6 using Communicator/2.

Any Philadelphia OS/2 SIG members who have installed Java 1.1.7 are requested to send me email with their results, especially stability and CaffeineMark 3.0 benchmark results compared to Java 1.1.6.

Attendees at Chicago's Warpstock '98 all report that the October 1998 event was a great success. Attendance was in the neighborhood of 400, about the same as Warpstock '97.

by Tom Nadeau, Dan Casey and Brad Wardell.

The Southern California OS/2 User Group also has an index of articles on-line about Warpstock '98. There are 18 articles written about the lectures, vendors and events which comprised Warpstock '98, including: The Win32-OS/2 Project by Timur Tabi, the "Bill Gates is a bully" lecture by Pete Grubbs, the lecture on combining Java and C into one executable by Terry Warren, EPM extensions by Bill Schindler, and Timur Tabi's "Introduction To Device Driver Programming", Lynn Maxson's "A Call To Action" in which he proposed a third-party rewrite of the OS/2 kernel, various vendors and products which appeared on the show floor including Sundial Systems, Simplicity For Java, Hopkins FBI, Hethmon Brothers and more; and commentary on Warpstock '98: "What Went Right, What Went Wrong", "Quote Of The Convention" and "Impressions." From WarpCast.

Last month, we reported that PowerQuest announced the release of version 4.0 of its popular PartitionMagic utility in late September. It does, indeed, include many new and desirable features.

Unfortunately, the new PartitionMagic 4.0 lacks a native OS/2 executable, which elicited an immediate outpouring of protests from irate OS/2 users. PartitionMagic does, in fact, support OS/2, but in a rather roundabout awkward manner, via DOS. Not at all comparable to Windows 95/98/NT.

In response to all the OS/2 protests, Candice Steelman, PowerQuest VP of Corporate Communications posted a widely distributed response which was partially insulting and partially incorrect/incomplete, together with an indication that PQ takes the OS/2 user complaints very seriously and that they will reexamine the situation vis-Ó-vis OS/2. She also stated that if PQ does subsequently release a native OS/2 executable, it will be a free downloadable patch. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it.

I didn't hold my breath. I was right on target. Not surprisingly, PowerQuest did, in fact, subsequently decide not to produce and release a native OS/2 executable v.4.0.

PartitionMagic v.3.0 is a very fine product, and it does provide native OS/2 executable code. It will probably do everything that an OS/2 user would want and need. My advice is to continue to use v.3.0, and don't bother with v.4.0.

Since Dan Porter's lengthy message of last month, explaining InnoVal's position on continuing development of the J Street Mailer, nothing further in the way of beta updates has been forthcoming from InnoVal.

Dan did send out a message directed to vendors/resellers/etc. offering big dollar incentives for volume purchases. But in my opinion, the J Street Mailer isn't yet a finished product, and may not be a viable competitor in the software marketplace at its current stage of development.

The J Street Mailer list server traffic is down to a mere trickle, and there has been little or no participation by anyone from InnoVal.

If and when IBM releases Java 1.1.7, expected soon, perhaps there will be a revival of activity. There is currently a public preview version of Java 1.1.7 available for download, and user feedback indicates that there is a very substantial increase in performance over v.1.1.6.

I've mentioned this at many meetings, and recommended it highly in this column several times over the years. I can't say enough good about it. So pay attention!

The OS/2 XCOPY command will make an exact backup of a drive, a directory and all included subdirectories and files, etc. Any thing you want.

All you have to do is to execute XCOPY with the path of the source, the path of the target, and the 7 arguments: /H /O /T /S /E /R /V.

XCOPY will then swiftly and reliably do most jobs for you. No need to buy expensive proprietary software.

And if you want to make a partition bootable, remember to do this via FDISK. Alternatively, you can also use the SYSINSTX.CMD command to put a boot block on any partition which shows up on the BOOT MANAGER menu.

IBM AntiVirus Datafiles Update AV30CK

IDE Device Drivers Update

TCP/IP v4.1 updates of 10-27-98:
SOCKETS.SYS - v5.3007
AFOS2.SYS - v5.3001
AFINET.SYS - v5.3006

Here's a selection of a few new files, released since last month's article, which are thought to be most useful or interesting to many of our OS/2 users. These files can be downloaded from hobbes, BMT, OS/2 Supersite, and other of the usual OS/2 Internet and BBS file distribution sources. Many more new software products for OS/2 are being continually released. These are but a small sample. Users should do their own perusals for new releases relevant to their personal interests and needs.

FAT32 IFS Beta 0.82 (access FAT32 from OS/2)
HomePage Publisher v.2.10a
HotJava 1.1.5
Matrox Unified BIOS v.3.44
Moneydance v.2.0 Beta 3
PMI News 2.0
PMMail v.2.09
SiteSurfer Preview Release

Please note that the November and December meetings will be held on the third Wednesday of each month instead of the usual fourth Wednesday because of conflict with the holidays which fall on the fourth weeks of these two months.

Wednesday, November 18th, the 3rd Wednesday of the month, at 7:00 pm, is the date and time of the next monthly SIG meeting at our current home, The Episcopal Academy, in Merion, PA.

Mark your calendars and plan to attend. And bring an interested friend or associate along to hear all the good news about OS/2. A system will be on hand for live demos of OS/2 Warp 4, a variety of OS/2 apps, Java, Internet, etc. as time may permit.

Members without cars can take SEPTA's R-5 (Paoli Local) to Overbrook, or the R-6 to Bala. Call Larry to make arrangements to be picked up at the RR Station.

Since Episcopal Academy is so close to public transportation, why don't you Philadelphia Center City folks who don't have cars call ahead of time to be picked up at the Overbrook train station. Hey, you guys in Center City, the trains are running. There's no excuse now for not coming to meetings.

Everybody should keep up to date by logging in to our OS/2 SIG web site at frequent intervals: www.pasug.org/

Please try to be on time. The meeting will start promptly at 7:00 pm, as per the following agenda and schedule.

Planned November Agenda:

1. General SIG business session: (7:00 - 7:15 pm)
   Announcements, news of interest, new OS/2 products, future plans, etc.

2. Q&A Session (7:15 - 8:15 pm):
   If you have questions, this is the place to bring them up. Someone is sure to have the answers. David Moskowitz, who usually conducts the Q&A, will be at the fall COMDEX in Las Vegas, so we'll let knowledgeable members answer questions from the others looking for help.

3. Intermission, raffles, etc.: (8:15 - 8:30 pm)
   As usual, complimentary light refreshments will be served. We will also have our customary 50/50 raffle followed by a software raffle (if available).

4. Feature Presentation (8:30 - 10:00 pm)
   We have a real treat scheduled for November. Dr. John J. Urbaniak, President of Aviar Inc., will make a return visit to the Philadelphia OS/2 SIG for the November meeting.

   Dr. Urbaniak will present and demonstrate Aviar's new speech-aware computerized maintenance management software (CMMS) for OS/2 and WSOD.

   As we all know, OS/2 Warp 4 includes VoiceType Dictation, but not many OS/2 apps exploit this marvelous technology. Aviar pioneered speech-aware, natural language DB2 query technology with its "V Trex" product, demonstrated to us by Dr. Urbaniak at the August 1997 meeting, to unanimous acclaim by all attendees.

   Aviar has now launched a new CMMS product, "Oz. of Prevention." According to Dr. Urbaniak, there are over 200 CMMS products on the market, none of which were native OS/2, until now; and none were speech-aware, until now.

   If your company has equipment which has to be maintained, a parts inventory which has to be controlled, or maintenance costs which have to be reduced, you should attend this presentation.

   Oz was presented at Warpstock '98 last month in Chicago, where it received rave reviews by attendees. Several Warpstock attendees have already requested and installed Oz, and are now running it through its paces.

   The Editor-in-Chief of "Maintenance Technology Magazine" visited Aviar at Warpstock, and was so impressed by Oz that he decided to feature the system in an upcoming issue of the magazine.

   Even if you don't have a need for a CMMS, but just want to see an example of a fully-integrated, speech-aware OS/2 app, please come to the November meeting.

5. Larry's system will be on hand for live demos, as time may permit. Member requests for specific demos are solicited, and will be done if the software is available and as time may permit. Episcopal Academy has installed a permanent analog phone line in our meeting room for our use for Internet access. Please call Larry prior to the meeting date to permit preparation.

All our more experienced users are urged to attend the November meeting to share their knowledge and expertise with others.

See you all on November 18th. Mark your calendars. Bring your friends and associates to show them that OS/2 is really alive and well.

Another treat has been scheduled for the December meeting. Our guest will be Sean Reilly, the author of Moneydance, a personal finance manager written completely in Java. Sean will present and demonstrate his latest version of Moneydance.

The third beta version of Moneydance 2.0 was made available for download on October 30th. It incorporates several new features and bug fixes since the earlier releases.

An additional surprise for the December meeting is also being considered.

Plans are being made for a SOHO/Personal User Network presentation and demo at the January meeting. Stay tuned.